Lent

Essay on the statics and history of the Christian rite Contents § 1. The current form of fasting. § 2. Duration of fasting in historical development. § 3. The image of fasting in historical development. § 1. The present form of fasting. Time and space are considered principles in philosophy, i.e. ways of limiting things. This means: not knowing things as they exist outside of us and in themselves, we know them only as they exist in space and time. They must pass through the prism of these conditions of our knowledge in order to be perceived by us. On the other hand, we can influence the external world not by its very essence, but only by revealing it to us, that is, again within the boundaries of time and place. This general law of our relationship to the world outside of us has some application to our religious life. Although God is so close to us that we “live, and move, and are in Him” 1 ), and is so akin to our soul that it can be revealed to it more directly than the material world, yet His relation to us cannot completely bypass the framework of place and time. It cannot be denied that God becomes closer to us in churches than in other places. And if so, then in the mutual relations between God and us, definitions of place matter. Moreover, in these relations, definitions of time that are less, so to speak, material and crude should matter. Sacred times should bring God no less closer to us than sacred places. These are a kind of churches to God in time, more spiritual than churches in the proper sense, therefore, more suitable for the Divine and more pleasing to Him. Entering sacred time, we feel a beneficial influence similar to that which we experience when entering the church. There is a difference, of course, but it is more beneficial for sacred time... Firstly, the beneficial influence here is longer lasting (although it may be less intense); secondly, it is more diverse. There are no two holidays that evoke exactly the same feelings in us. We can say that on every holiday God reveals himself to us from a completely different side. At least in the Orthodox Church, the set of hymns that make up the divine service of each great holiday is so unique in its general character that it sets the believer in a completely different mood than on another holiday. In this regard, there is a difference, and a big one, even between such relatively minor holidays as, for example, the Presentation and the Annunciation. And the divine service, with its chants and melodies, serves as an expression of our mood on the holiday; This mood inspired the holiday songs and melodies of their creators. If we evaluate sacred times from this point of view, if we look at them as a kind of churches to God, purifying and elevating those who enter there, then it is difficult to find a more majestic and sacred church than Lent. He fully justifies his epithet, which was adopted by him in common parlance 2 and belongs, besides him, to only one holiday, one week of the church year, Easter. In this post, the Christian Church wields an educational tool of such power and significance that one can hardly form a sufficient understanding of it. A person’s religious experiences occupy such a deep part of his soul that they are barely amenable not only to study, but even to simple observation. All the less is it possible to determine or, more precisely, to take into account their influence on the entire mental life of a person, and through it on his entire life in general, on his not only his activity, but also his worldview and character. It is no exaggeration to say that during this Lent we are more like Christians than ever before. The religious idea seemed to be in the air then. Everything around us is so reminiscent of God and eternity that it is absolutely impossible not to think about it, you can only think one way or another, more or less. God constantly stands before the eyes of everyone: for some, as a joyful thought and hope, for others, as a painful task, for others, as an incomprehensible, perhaps undesirable force, still acting so powerfully in people, despite the systematic, thousand-year struggle against God. Such an institution, whenever it arises, cannot but have the greatest significance not only for Christianity, but also for humanity. In it, Christianity manifests its effectiveness and strength with such sensitivity and impressiveness as rarely before. And Rev. Cassian, as we will see below, explains the establishment of Lent by the desire of the pastors of the Church, at least for these 40 days, to resurrect in the believers that spiritual fervor with which the first Christians burned all the time. Isn’t the phenomenon observed by St. not being repeated now, although on a less noticeable scale due to the greater crowding of the population and the mixture of different tribes and religions in one place? Chrysostom in the 4th-5th centuries regarding fasting: “Today there is no noise, no shouting, no cutting of meat, no running of cooks; all this has stopped, and our city now resembles an honest, modest and chaste wife. When I think about the sudden change that has occurred today, and remember the turmoil of yesterday, I am amazed at the power of fasting, how, having entered into everyone’s conscience, it changed thoughts and cleared the mind.”3 Every sin, even every rotten word, does not pass without a trace. And the destructive effect of sin is not limited to the narrow circle of the place where it was committed. One might say that the poisonous waves of its current spread throughout the world. Every sin in some way undermines and destroys the world, which is why all sins are so disgusting to God and are so punished by Him. If Lent stopped at least one such sin, then it has global significance. With each year of life, a Christian becomes more and more ingrained in the habit of spending these weeks in this way, filling them with these sensations. Little by little, a powerful habit makes fasting at such times a necessity, without which it hurts. Here we must also add the inevitable influence of heredity here, as in all spiritual and physical life. An institution as significant as it was complex required skillful organization. Lent truly represents a whole, strictly thought-out system of actions, or rather, influences on believers. It is enough to enter the Church on a clean Monday or in the evening of a damp Sunday, and the very sight of mourning vestments on lecterns will have an imperceptible effect on our mood. And during Lent there are dozens of such impressions in churches: from chants to slow, mournful ringing, all of this, one after another, continuously hits the soul, knocking on its doors, usually closed not only to religious, but also to any high movements, until, finally, the life-giving breath of faith begins to penetrate into the broken cracks. The main one of the beneficial influences of fasting or the instruments of its influence on the soul, no matter how numerous and varied they are, is still the very essence of fasting, its material basis, that is, a certain limitation of oneself in food. Whatever you say, nutrition plays a huge role in our lives. From food, so to speak, our body is newly created. And the body is a manifestation, a manifestation of the soul, which in the most sublime act of its life cannot act detached from the body. The process of nutrition in a broad sense, including the processing of food into the tissues of our body, absorbs a lot of energy from the soul and takes over most of its life, continuously filling it with sensations associated with this work. In view of the importance of food for our purely spiritual life, it is not surprising that all religions have always attached such moral importance to fasting, that is, to a certain kind of rationing and limiting oneself in food. But besides this, still semi-physiological significance, fasting acquires special significance because it brings human nutrition into close connection with worship of God and receives religious sanctification. Thanks to this, the life-giving verb of God truly passes “until the division of soul and spirit, members and marrow” 4 . The beneficial influence of religion, thus, extends to the very bottom of our soul, to that subconscious side of it, where it already acts as a simple “life force” (vis vitalis). Given the psycho-physical nature of fasting, all the material conditions in which it occurs are of great importance to it. Of these conditions, the most important are the following three: the time or time of fasting, its duration and the method of fasting. It is known what these conditions are for Lent. In the first respect, this is a spring fast. It falls at a time of year when the entire organism of nature is renewed on such a large scale that this period of its life has long been given the name “resurrection” of nature. Being a part of nature, a son of her in body, man, of course, cannot remain captured in this general flow of the spring revival of nature. On the contrary, as her most tender creation, he should be most responsive to the life-giving breath of spring. Everyone is familiar with that rise in bodily energy, that boiling of strength in the body that takes place in the spring. It is our body that absorbs the life that is then spilling out everywhere in nature. This or that kind of nutrition is then more important for the body than ever before. To sanctify the nutrition of the body at such a time means to sanctify it at the most appropriate time. On the other hand, the “dimension” of the flesh is then especially strong. To sacrifice this most pleasant part of the year to God truly means to offer him the best that we have, the best days of our lives, the “firstfruits” (in the biblical sense of the word) of the year, which in ancient times began everywhere in spring. As for the duration of fasting, the ancient teachers of the Church already drew attention to the fact that it constitutes a tenth of the year. Fasting, actually as a feat of abstinence, ends on Friday of the 6th week of fasting, when the Church begins its hymns with the words: “Having completed the spiritually beneficial Pentecost”; Then another fast begins in honor of the suffering of Christ. There are exactly 40 days until this day from the beginning of the fast. By excluding from the 48 days of the entire fast (including Holy Week) 12 Saturdays and Sundays, on which fasting is not required, but fasting food is taken only for uniformity in nutrition, the result is 38 days. According to one calculation or another, fasting approaches 36 days of 1/10 of the year. Thus, not only the “firstfruits of the year” is dedicated to God, but also the “tithe” of it, in accordance with those tithes that were usually offered among all nations as a gift to God from all the fruits of the earth. This tithe is especially valuable because it brings to God not something external and extraneous to a person, but, as it were, a part of himself, his life. This is the self-sacrifice that the Savior demanded from His followers. The magnitude of such fasting fully corresponds to the greatness of the Christian faith and its superiority over the Old Testament religion, which required only one day of fasting a year. By fasting for forty days, Christians, as the ancient teachers of the Church again drew attention to, put themselves on the same moral level only with the greatest righteous men of the Old Testament - Moses and Elijah - and imitate Christ. But it is not so much the symbolism and coincidences that is important, but the very essence of the matter. Forty or more days of fasting is not a small time. This, of course, is not like the fasts of the ancient ascetics, which lasted for decades; but this is a feasible imitation of their fasting on the part of every Christian, which is at the same time actual recognition of their (the ascetics) deeds of great, enduring significance. As we will see below, the pre-Easter fast was extended to 40 days precisely under the influence of the great examples of fasting among the saints. hermits. 40 days is a period of time in which you can get used to the harshest regime, enter completely new living conditions, feel a completely different life, the life of a faster with its hardships and heavenly joys. If in the whole institution of fasting the main and central place is occupied by a person’s bodily restriction of himself in food, then one or another degree of this restriction or dietetics of nutrition is very important in the matter of fasting. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the Orthodox Church this side of fasting is subject to the most precise regulation. The latter is given together and inseparably with the rite of worship for Lent (in the Typikon and the Lenten Triodion), and such a connection in itself says a lot, it is touching: the meal seems to be a continuation of the service, transferring it into all household life. “The Gospel of Mark, conceived 10,” we read in the sequence for the 1st Saturday of Lent, “and the saint, conceived 52. Communicated: In eternal memory. At the meal we honor the word of praise about Saint Theodore of St. Gregory of Nisskago. And we eat the scalded beans with white and black olives. Let us partake of the concoction [liquid dish] with the received oil, and the coliva; We drink wine according to our beauty for the sake of the saint. This was received from the Lavra of the Venerable Savva, and from our God-bearing father Euthymius.” The rules regarding food given for Lent by the church charter are, in general, so severe that they will terrify even a strong nature in this regard. But they are well designed for the strength of an average healthy body, and for weaknesses they are made exceptions to the rule, however, not in the least indulging in excessive delicacy. Complete non-eating is required for a whole day only for three days of fasting: its first two days (Maundy Monday and Tuesday) and Good Friday. The remaining days of the 1st week until Friday inclusive, then from Monday to Friday of the 2nd–6th week, as well as in the first four days of Holy Week and on Holy Saturday, dry eating is prescribed once a day in the evening, that is, eating bread, water and vegetables; Boiled vegetables are also allowed (for example, peas), but dry and without vegetable oil (vegetables except on Holy Saturday). On all Saturdays and Sundays of Lent, real boiled food with vegetable oil (“boiling with oil”) and wine are allowed (the latter is also allowed on those days of dry eating on which more solemn memories fall or on which very long services are performed, for example, on Thursday of the fifth week of Lent and even on Holy Saturday). During the entire Lent, fish is allowed only on the Annunciation and on Palm Sunday (on the first, if it does not fall during Holy Week) 5 . In the Orthodox Church there is no special liturgical charter for monasteries and a special one for secular churches. And since the rules of fasting (for the reasons given above) are closely connected with divine services and are given only in the charter of the latter, then the rules of fasting set forth are meant not only for monks, but also for laymen. Where the abstinence of monks during Lent should differ in some way from that of the world, this is precisely stipulated in the statute; for example, except for Wednesday and Friday, the charter commands monks to fast on Monday 6; or on all the days when butter and eggs are allowed to monks, it is added about the laity that they are allowed meat. The absence of such a clause in the charter of fasting for Pentecost shows that the Church views this charter as obligatory for the laity to the same extent that the entire liturgical charter is obligatory for them. But just as the Church does not condemn for incomplete fulfillment of the liturgical regulations, leaving much to diligence in this regard, thanks to which practice has developed a certain minimum of services, beyond which it is considered impermissible to go, the same is allowed with the church rules of fasting. Practice has established as a minimum fasting abstinence from meat, milk and eggs during fasting. And, it should be noted that this practice also has a canonical basis in the rules of the Ecumenical Councils. Rule 26 of the 6th Ecumenical Council, regarding the custom that existed then in Armenia and other places on the Saturdays and Sundays of Pentecost to eat cheese and eggs, prescribes: “this is also recognized as good, and the Church of God, throughout the universe, following the same rite, fasts and abstains, as from everything that is tempered, likewise from eggs and cheese, which are the fruit and product of what we abstain from; If they do not observe this, then the clergy will be deposed, and the laity will be excommunicated.” This rule, of course, prohibits the consumption of only meat, cheese and eggs during fasting and is considered a violation of fasting. Although it is not known exactly when the statutory rules for fasting arose and that they are less authoritative than the decrees of the Ecumenical Council, a little further historical consideration of the issue will show us that those rules are based on ancient church practice. And the Council, prohibiting the consumption of the named products during Lent, refers only to Saturdays and Sundays of Lent. The Council had no reason to talk about what food was not allowed on other days. “Concerning food, carry what you can,” - such a lenient rule regarding fasting is given by the oldest moralizing Christian work after the New Testament Holy Scriptures, known as “The Teaching of the 12 Apostles.” “If you can truly bear the whole yoke of the Lord, you will be perfect; and if you can’t, then do what you can.” 7 With the church rules of fasting, the situation with us is exactly the same as with the liturgical regulations of the Church. There is a widespread belief that this charter is impossible to implement not only in parish churches, but also in cathedrals, and even in monasteries. But this conviction comes from those who never thought of fulfilling it. In old Russia they carried it out and therefore did not think like that. Our worship would undoubtedly gain a lot from the exact fulfillment of the rules. Thanks to the cuts, it is now boring with its monotony. It is being brought closer and closer to Roman Catholic worship, consisting of the same prayers every time; the stichera and the canon, which mainly diversify the divine service and which constitute the best, central part of it, are most subject to reduction. If at an Orthodox service everything that is supposed to be sung was sung with proper skill, it would appear in such wondrous beauty that it is now difficult to even imagine. So it is with the church rules of fasting. It is difficult and completely impossible to judge their feasibility and merit without experiencing them for yourself. The author of these lines happened to meet a pious man from the laity of the intelligentsia, who decided to try these rules in practice. In our opinion, the experiment carried out by this man has no less, so to speak, scientific value than the plan of the American scientist Wyckof, who, in order to study the life of the poor, decided to become a laborer for two years. His book about the life of a worker, published after these two years, in which he endured something incredible for a man pampered by comfort (he often had to go hungry or eat garbage), was a valuable contribution to literature. The experience, the story of which we were able to hear, we hope, will also shed considerable light on the dignity of the church rules of fasting. Let us briefly convey the story we heard. The narrator decided to eat only tea and bread once a day at lunchtime or in the evening for five days of each week of Lent. The first days were, of course, the most difficult. On the third day I felt such exhaustion that my arms and legs refused to work. But then it became easier. Only during normal eating hours it was very difficult. But it was actually not so much hunger as a desire for the process of eating itself, the pleasure associated with this process. For the fasting person, it has now become clear how much the process of nutrition fills a person’s life. He noticed that until now his entire day had consisted essentially of sensations associated with the process of eating (of course, if something else on a certain day did not take over his entire being). He noted that hitherto he had two main sensations, alternating with continuity: after eating food, a feeling of satiety dominated in his soul; when it went out, it was immediately replaced by a feeling of slight hunger; the latter feeling was no less pleasant than the first, as it was associated with the prospect of quick satiation. When we now had to tear this area of ​​sensations out of the soul, there was a terrible emptiness in it, which for a long time could not be filled with anything, no spiritual work. I felt bitter and annoyed at such deep materialism of man, which had not been noticed before. I felt very bad in the first days of fasting. Nothing came to mind: neither classes, nor reading, much less prayer. The flesh was indignant and rebelled, demanding all the strength of the soul to pacify it. The fasting man sadly noticed that even the touching hymns of Lenten services, which always shed sweet tenderness into his soul, now fell coldly on it. It seemed that there were not enough juices in the body, and therefore the soul became callous and dry. “And how could ascetics call fasting the wings of prayer?” - came to mind. I felt terribly tired. I really didn’t want to do anything. It was necessary to force oneself to do every task that had previously been done willingly and cheerfully. I had to muster up all the remaining energy so that the experience would not harm my studies. Even reading has gone completely different from what it used to be. He found it difficult to become interested in the book. It was necessary to find something truly outstanding in the book in order to attract tired attention and thought. The most interesting books were read with indifference. In a word, the normal course of life and mental activity was completely disrupted. But this did not bother the voluntary faster. He foresaw all this in part. He decided not to leave his bold experience above him and to patiently wait for the results. The days dragged on languidly and boringly. His soul was so callous and empty that the faster was afraid to analyze it. It seemed to him that she was filled with one nasty feeling - longing for the “meats of Egypt.” The person is prone to exaggeration and self-judgment. When the faster began to look more closely at what was now happening in his soul, he became convinced that it was not just hunger and longing for food that filled his soul. Against the general background of these low sensations, he caught one constant, one might say, persistent thought. This thought was the thought of God. Now he could not help but think about God every minute and every second. What he did, he did, of course, only for God. And doing this made me feel painful every minute, it made me feel hard, but it did. There could be no self-interest or calculation in such a matter. Any act of charity can be more likely to be suspected of self-interest than this deed. Of all human deeds and exploits, not a single one is so exclusively directed towards God and to Him alone as this. Naturally, it cannot be accomplished without constant thought and memory of God. He now constantly stood before the faster’s mental gaze. He was the same as before, mysterious and incomprehensible. But it seemed to the faster that in the wonderful and terrible form in which God usually appeared to him, he now began to find new features. Previously, he thought about God more from the side of His love and forgiveness. God seemed to him only as a loving, forgiving, all-forgiving Father. He somehow forgot that this Father could be strict, that He could be angry and punish people. Now his gaze seemed to discern this last feature in God. And at times fear and trepidation began to run through my soul from this unexpected discovery. He realized with amazement that until now he had considered God an almost weakly lenient Father, ready to forgive everything and leave unpunished the largest misdeeds of his obstinate children. Now the faster noticed that wherever he went and whatever he did, these stern, although friendly, eyes looked at him. He could not help but constantly feel this gaze on him, just as he could not help but think about God now. You can get used to everything. You can get used to it and eat a piece of bread and a glass of water a day. Little by little the narrator also got used to his meager meal. It took relatively little time for this: no more than two weeks into his strict fast, he felt that this fast was no longer burdening him. It was impossible to say that fasting did not make me feel at all even now. True, the fasting man almost never went hungry. Exhaustion, dejection, and melancholy appeared less and less often. But nevertheless, his general mood, his mood, both mental and physical well-being, was far from being the same as what happens with normal nutrition. He could not catch, define and name this difference. But that there was a difference, and a significant, noticeable one, there could be no doubt about it. Comparing his present self with his former self, he could notice one change. Now that playful, self-satisfied mood of a well-fed person, which is so pleasant to feel oneself and which is so unpleasantly striking in another, never appeared in him. This is the mood in which a person wants to joke, laugh, when he surrenders to the sweet languor of peace, doing nothing, light reading, etc. He now felt completely incapable of all this. It seemed to him that his body now did not have those extra juices that give rise to this complacency. It seemed to him that he had just enough life juice left to make his body obey his soul. And it seemed to listen to the soul more now. It seemed to be unable to lull and lull the soul, and the latter benefited from this: there was more vigor, clarity, and sobriety in it. He now understood why St. Ascetics considered fasting the first condition of the so-called “spiritual work.” He became convinced that fasting really “thins” the body and gives wings to the soul. It seemed to him that the real work of moral improvement had just begun in his soul. The first step towards such improvement, undoubtedly, was that sin now seemed to him more vile and disgusting than before. It was as if sin had suddenly cast off before him the poetic shell in which it usually appears to man and which so skillfully covers up his inner ugliness. What previously, for example, seemed to him to be caring for his neighbor, now, with a more strict assessment, turned out to be schadenfreude and envy. His eyes were opened to himself. He made a correct assessment of himself, and this assessment turned out to be low. The desire to remake myself became the main thing in my soul. True, passions did not die in her soul: they made her feel just as keenly as before. But the center of gravity of mental life has shifted from these passions to what is divine and heavenly in the soul. It was as if the whole worldview had changed. Holy Week has arrived. The near end of a difficult experience increased vigor. The powerful force of habit completely reconciled the body with the harsh regime. The fasting man could not, however, say that the touching church services affected him more than before. Rather, some exhaustion in the body weakened their impression. But one minute rewarded him for everything. At the most touching of passionate services - Matins of Holy Saturday - he was visited by real tears of tenderness. He also remembered the moment of the service in which he experienced this hitherto unknown bliss. That was when reading the next verse from the praises of the so-called article one: “Thou didst come down to earth to save Adam, and did not find this on earth, O Lord, even to hell didst thou descend to seek” 8 . The verse is truly one of the most poetic in the entire service. He had previously caught the narrator’s attention with his depth and beauty. But always, before and after, this verse touched him to the same extent as dozens of other sublime passages in worship, perhaps a little more. Now the love of Christ depicted here and the depth of the fall of man, which lured God Himself into hell, appeared to the consciousness in such brightness and strength, so touched the soul that it was impossible to stop crying. Having read something on asceticism, he knew about tears of tenderness, he knew that these were sweet tears, tears of some kind of delight. But he could not imagine that such unearthly bliss was poured into them and that their sweetness was so indescribably high. These blessed tears flowed from his eyes for no more than one or two minutes, but the bliss of these two minutes, which was never repeated in his life, was, in his opinion, well worth forty days of heavy fasting. The described “experience” shows that the rules of fasting given by our charter, although really difficult and harsh, promise a lot for their implementation. But it goes without saying that they can hardly count on widespread use. It is even possible that for another organism they would not be harmless. The statute itself takes into account such restrictions and provides relief for the weak; for example, he allows the elderly, young and sick to eat food on Tuesday of the 1st week in the evening, i.e., he reduces complete non-eating to 1 day. But the benefits do not go further than this. Nowhere is permission given for the sake of weakness to eat not only butter and milk during fasting, but even fish and vegetable oil (on days when it is prohibited). The famous interpreter of church canons Balsamon, Patriarch of Alexandria, says: “No one is allowed to eat meat on Lent, even in case of mortal illness; we see that at different times this was asked about at councils, but permission was not given” 9 . Usually, the idea of ​​Christian freedom is raised as an objection to the obligatory fasts, and in particular the Great Fast. It cannot be argued that Christianity does not consider external worship as obligatory as the Mosaic Law did. But we must not lose sight of the fact that fasting is not just a ritual, but a means, and a very strong one, of moral education. And is it possible to say that the ritual is completely unnecessary for Christianity? Let us not forget that the sacrament also has an external, ritual side and, according to the conviction of the Orthodox Church, is not performed without it. It is impossible to partake of the Body and Blood of Christ without bread and wine. It is impossible to receive forgiveness of sins without confession, to be baptized without water, etc. Likewise, regarding fasting, there has always been a conviction in Christianity and the Church that it is not only useful, but also necessary for salvation and that a Christian cannot completely and never fast. As we have seen, fasting gives something to mental life and development that it cannot receive in any other way. Also unfounded is the displeasure against the Church for precisely establishing the time and timing for fasting. Public fasting is as higher and stronger than private fasting as public prayer is private. Anyone who does not want public fasts must refuse or recognize as unnecessary all our wonderful worship. “One enters a city and finds that they are fasting there: he breaks the fast with them,” the Talmud demands 10. But this is also required by moral, so to speak, delicacy towards others. Khomyakov said that moral solidarity with the Church did not allow him to separate from the mass of believers in fasting, although he was not fully aware of its benefits. § 2. Duration of fasting in historical development. If “words teach, but examples motivate,” then there could not be a time in the life of the Christian Church when it did not have fasts. The picture of the vast, scorched Jericho desert with howling jackals, dotted with scorpions, timidly walking around an exhausted Man with his head bowed in great thought, is too stunning for a modern artist 11 so that it does not always stand before the eyes of the believer of those times when they could not think and talk about anything else but Christ. Beginning (in its preparatory weeks) almost immediately after the feast of Epiphany, lasting 40 days, Lent is such a clear imitation of the fast of Christ that it is not surprising if the ancient church writers considered it a “Divine institution,” probably seeing in the fast of the Savior an obligatory example for us to follow. “For forty days, according to the laws of King Christ, healing is offered to cleanse the flesh,” says St. Gregory the Theologian 12. According to St. Ambrose, Christ fasted in order to “teach us useful deeds not only in words, but also by example, so that with the same feet with which we flow towards faith, we would make the procession towards abstinence” 13. Peter Chrysologus calls Pentecost “not a human invention, but a Divine statute” 14. But John Chrysostom correctly notes: “Christ does not say that we should imitate Him in fasting, although He could have referred to those 40 days; but - “learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.” Even on the contrary, sending the apostles to preach, he did not say: fast - but “eat everything that is offered to you.” 15. The Savior would have diminished the high spirituality of the faith He founded; He would not have so endlessly elevated it above all religions that have ever existed, not excluding the Old Testament and ancient Buddhist, if If He had established at least one day of obligatory fasting, the reluctance to do this was all the more characteristic of the Savior because He could not imagine His disciples not fasting at all as much as not praying. To give complete freedom in satisfying such ineradicable needs of the human spirit as prayer and fasting - this meant imparting to the new religion hitherto unheard-of freedom and spirituality. If the apostles correctly understood the spirit of the teaching of their Lord (and that is why so few of them were chosen, that others were not able to understand this spirit as they did), then they could not establish fasts or holidays. “You observe days, months, times and years. I’m afraid for you, whether I worked for you in vain,” the apostle writes bitterly. Paul Galatians 16. The Apostle denounces them not for observing the Jewish Sabbaths, new moons, holidays and Sabbatical years, but for a purely legalistic desire for scrupulous accuracy in determining their dates 17. If not with such zeal as the “pillars” of the Jerusalem Church, James the Righteous, Peter, then still with impeccable accuracy the apostle. Paul himself observed the Jewish holidays, interrupting his apostolic journeys for them 18. But he insisted on complete freedom for Christians in relation to all sacred times. “One distinguishes day from day, and another judges every day (equally). Everyone (act) according to the evidence of his own mind. He who distinguishes the days distinguishes for the Lord [celebrating them in His honor]; and whoever does not distinguish between the days does not discern for the Lord” 19, thanking Him in our hearts for the freedom granted by the New Testament in this regard. App's concerns Paul that he “works in vain” to establish the idea of ​​Christian freedom in the minds of Christians did not come true, as, however, he himself could not help but foresee if he believed in the future of the Church. The further, the more freely Christians began to relate to Jewish holidays, replacing them with their own. Already in the time of the apostles, the “day of the Lord” overshadowed the Sabbath 20, although it was observed in the Church almost until V in 21. Having received the right from Her Founder and the immediate successors of His work to develop for herself the entire cult, the Church, as it were, left this to time and the gradual development of her life, thanks to which all her institutions, being so imprinted with the spirit of Christ and the apostolic that they involuntarily tear from the lips the epithets “Divine”, “apostolic”, are the creations of herself, flesh of her flesh, a dear monument and heritage of her age-old life. Great Lent is such a free creation of the Church. The time of its establishment in the Church is still a mystery to history. But already in the 17th century, archeology rejected the previously widespread opinion about the apostolic origin of this post. This opinion was based mainly on the 69th Apostolic Canon, which pronounces condemnation on those who do not fast on Lent. In addition, such ancient writers as Bl. Jerome and Pope Leo I (440–461) call the first Pentecost a fast “according to the tradition of the apostles” 22, and the second an “apostolic institution” 23. But regarding the apostolic rules, it has long been established by science that they, correctly expressing the spirit of the apostolic teaching, could not have happened earlier than the 2nd century, and in some places they bear traces of practice from the 3rd-4th centuries. As for the evidence Blessed Jerome and Leo the Great, then the name “apostolic” in their mouths was often only an honorary title and not a historical mark: about St. Leo, let us note that he calls everything that has long been observed in his church and even deliberately established by his predecessors: St. Damasus (366-384) and Siricius (384-398). 24; Blessed Jerome himself is aware of the broad uncertainty of the concept of “apostolic,” noting that the rule about fasting on Saturday, observed by some churches and not by others, was traced back to the apostles 25. If during the time of the apostles Great Lent had existed, even in its rudimentary form, as something generally widespread and generally accepted, then somewhere in their epistles there would have been some indication of it, just as these epistles contain numerous indications of various customs in the churches of that time, of liturgical practice (the Eucharist), and of the celebration of Sunday. If the apostolic epistles could pass over such a fast in silence, despite the fact that there was reason to talk about it when it came to abstinence in general (for example, the Apostle Paul about abstinence from meat, from wine), then, at least, among the writers closest to the apostles, among the so-called apostolic men and in their contemporary monuments, there could not but be a mention of this fast. It can be said that each of these writers had a reason to talk about this subject in the writings preserved from him and did not speak. In the message of St. Two chapters of Barnabas (out of 21) deal specifically with fasting, all the passages of the Old Testament about fasting are cited and between them the formidable definition of Leviticus 23, 29: “Whoever does not fast by fasting will suffer death” 26 - and nothing is said about the obligation of Christians to fast; on the contrary, it is proved 27 that fasting should consist of works of mercy. In the “Shepherd” of Hermas, a monument also of the 1st century, one section (out of the so-called 10 “similarities” there, besides which there are 4 more visions and 12 commandments) is dedicated to fasting, and in it they find a vague, however, indication of fasting on Wednesday and Friday: Hermas tells the Shepherd that he is “standing,” explaining that this means “fasting”; Meanwhile, it is known that already in the time of Tertullian, Wednesday and Friday were called “days of standing” 28. Thus, here, where one might expect a mention of the fast of Pentecost, there is no such mention 29. Nowadays, in science, the most precious and intact of the ancient monuments is considered to be the so-called “Teaching of the 12 Apostles” (discovered only in 1875 in a manuscript of the 11th century). Written, according to the most severe critics (who reject the authenticity or integrity of the gospels and apostolic epistles) no later than the end of the 1st or beginning of the 2nd century, it serves as the best indicator of the practice of the church of the first post-apostolic period. It speaks three times about fasting 30 and also does not mention Lent, while a direct instruction is given to fast on Wednesday and Friday 31. There is no mention of it in another, now very valuable, ancient Christian monument, the so-called “Canons of the Church of St. the Apostles" 32, constituting a very early revision of the "Teachings of the 12 Apostles"; however, in this monument there is no mention of fasting at all. There is no talk about fasting (therefore, there could be no mention of Great Lent) and in the epistles of St. Ignatius the God-Bearer (107 or 115). Such an indication is found only in the epistle with his name to the Philippians (“Do not despise the Quaternary: it serves as an imitation of the life of Christ”), but its falsity has long been proven 33 . The earliest evidence of Pentecost is, therefore, the letter of St. Irenaeus of Lyons (†202) to Pope Victor (189–198) regarding disputes about the time of celebrating Easter, cited by Eusebius in his “Ecclesiastical History” 34. Recognizing that the “sacrament of the Resurrection of the Lord” should be celebrated only on Sunday, he asks Victor not to exclude from his fellowship entire churches that observe the custom inherited from their ancestors, that is, they celebrate Easter on the 14th day of the first spring lunar month, like the Jews, no matter what day of the week this full moon occurs. Having presented many arguments for his request, St. Irenaeus continues literally like this: “For the matter is not only about the day, but also about how to fast; It is precisely some who think that you need to fast only one day, others - two days, others - even more; some count this day in 40 hours of day and night συμμετροΰσι την ήμέραν αυτών)". Easter fast in this place during St. father's life lasted here for a day, sometimes for two, sometimes even longer; where he embraced a period of time of 40 hours. Three of these four dates are quite clear. Only the latter is expressed in such a way that it allows, or at least allowed, a different understanding. It was Rufinus († 410), the first and oldest translator of Eusebius’s “History” into Latin, a younger contemporary of its author himself, who conveys the last phrase of Irenaeus as follows: “Some are 40, so they determine the day by counting the hours of the day and night.” Consequently, Rufinus saw here in Irenaeus an indication of the 40-day duration of the pre-Easter fast, achieving this simply by placing a punctuation mark after the word τεσσαράκοντα (“forty”) and seeing in the last words the idea that they fasted not only during the daytime hours, but also at night. It is immediately clear that for such a thought the last words of Irenaeus would give a very strange and even downright impossible expression. If St. Father wanted to express the idea that Christians fasted not only until the evening, as the Jews did on the day of purification, but continued fasting until late at night, then he had to say that Christians fasted all day and part of the night. Why are we talking about “hours” here if their number is not indicated? Why the strange expression “calculate” (literally “proportionate”)? What is the meaning of adding “your” to “day”? And was it even possible for ordinary mortals to fast for 40 days, all day long? In the lives of St. Fasters are told about especially rare phenomena even among them, about such a long fast, for which the strength of spirit was really needed, similar to that of Moses, Elijah and Christ. All these oddities in the expression of St. Irenaeus disappears if we see in this place a reference to the custom of some Christians to fast before Easter not for a day or two or several, but for exactly 40 hours. While some and the majority measured (συμμετρουσι) their fasting in days, others measured it in hours, fasting not for one or several such units of time, but for the symbolic, sacred with so many high examples of fasting - the number 40 and, due to their weakness, replacing days with hours. The words “hours”, “measure”, which are strange to understand by Rufinov 35, acquire with the present understanding the most natural meaning, as well as the expression “one’s own day”: a forty-hour fast can be called one day of fasting, only a peculiar day (“one’s own”). In addition, with this understanding, between the practice of fasting among different Christians (probably among Christians of different local churches) there will not be such an impenetrable difference as there would be if in one place they fasted for one, two or “more” days, and in others as many as 40. The very word “more” (πλεῖονας) in comparison with 1 and 2 cannot mean more than 3, 4, etc. Thus, in the fast of the times of Irenaeus we already see the main grain of St. Pentecostals. At that time, the pre-Easter fast already existed everywhere, corresponding in time and duration to the current Great Friday and Saturday; in some places even this fast was even longer and could reach a whole week before Easter, corresponding to the current Holy Week. It was natural that Great Lent should begin with the establishment of its most important part - Holy Week. At the same time, we already see that at this time, so to speak, the idea of ​​fasting for forty days in imitation of the fast of Christ is floating in the air among Christians. If such fasting is defined not in 40 days, but in 40 hours, then this is due to the fact that, as we will see later, then they did not imagine fasting otherwise than in the form of complete non-eating, which was the fasting in the Old Testament Church, this mother in relation to the Christian Church. Spending more than two to three days completely without food was unsafe for health. The first witness to the pre-Easter fast of St. Irenaeus, as we have seen, finds this post far from young. It already has a general distribution in the Christian Church, which then almost covered the most remote provinces of the “worldwide” empire. Such wide distribution required considerable time. Consequently, the first rudiments of this fast, its beginning, are lost for us in the sacred darkness of the first two centuries of Christianity. One can only make guesses and assumptions about this beginning, without which, however, no science, including history, can do. One minor phenomenon of church life in the 2nd century can shed some light on the first occurrence and initial form of the pre-Easter fast. This is the same dispute about the time of celebrating Easter, about which St. Irenaeus wrote his message. The dispute arose over the fact that, while almost the entire Church celebrated Easter on the first Sunday after the Jewish Passover, the Christians of Asia Minor celebrated it together with the Jewish Passover. The temptation from such a difference was produced mainly, as Eusebius tells in his “History,” by the fact that the Asians and the pre-Easter fast ended on that (κατὰ ταύτην) day 36 from which Christians, according to Irenaeus, began it. The Christians of Asia Minor defended their practice so stubbornly, despite its loneliness, because they knew behind it a deep, so to speak, immemorial antiquity for them. Meanwhile, St. Polycarp of Smyrna (†167) finds this dispute in such heat that because of it he undertakes a journey to Rome to restore peace between the churches. All this makes us look for the beginning of the celebration of Easter no later than in the 1st century. At the same time, the Easter dispute of the 2nd century. shows how closely the pre-Easter fast stood with the celebration of Easter. The holiday itself was viewed as a permission from fasting. In this regard, it is very characteristic that in the time of St. Epiphany of Cyprus there was one branch of the fourteen-dayers (this was the name given to supporters of celebrating Easter with the Jews on the 14th of Nisan, who broke away from the Church because of this; in Latin - quartodecimani), which limited both the pre-Easter fast and the Easter holiday itself to one day, the 14th of Nisan. If the 2nd century Fourteen Day Diaries were right in their dispute with the then Roman Church regarding the antiquity of their practice, then it is possible that the mentioned St. Epiphanius, the branch of the Quartodecimani, preserved the most ancient practice of the pre-Easter fast. Nothing can be said against such an assumption by the fact that the Church condemned the Quartodecimans as heretics (more precisely, as schismatics): she condemned them not for being faithful to antiquity, but for breaking church unity because of it. They suffered the fate of our schismatics... The extreme antiquity of the practice of the Quartodecimans is evidenced by its extreme simplicity. When, if not on the day of this death, was it most natural to honor the death of Christ by fasting, and when was it most natural to celebrate Christian Easter, if not on the day of the Old Testament Easter, which prefigured it? Church writers of the 2nd – 3rd centuries notice (as we will see below) a strange use of the word “Easter”: they call the pre-Easter fast “Easter”. This usage can only be explained as an echo of the time when the death and resurrection of Christ were celebrated on the same day, because it is impossible to imagine that the Church could ever have two Easters in a year. Moreover, even in the current church charter there are traces of such a connection of only seemingly incompatible things. The greatest of the days of Lent, and therefore the saddest of them, is, of course, Good Friday, and the next one in this regard is Great Saturday, the only Saturday of the year on which fasting is required, even in the form of dry eating, and the liturgy is celebrated after Vespers (i.e., in theory, it is not performed at all on this day, since the next church day begins with Vespers). And so, on the first of these greatest fasting days, on Good Friday, vespers of a completely festive type are performed (with an entrance, with a festive order of litanies: first the litany, and then the supplicatory one), and even the highest of the festive types - with the reading of the Apostle and the Gospel, which is done at vespers only of the three greatest holidays of the church year: Easter, the Nativity of Christ and Epiphany. Matins of Great Saturday is not only of a festive type (great doxology), but in its solemnity it is second throughout the year only to Easter Matins; in addition, a whole series of Sunday songs are sung on it: the troparion “When Thou Descended,” the troparion “The Council of Angels,” the Sunday sedalene “Thy Sepulcher, O Savior,” and two Sunday prokemenas and an allelulia from the verses of Psalm 67, “Let God rise again.” All this can be considered an echo of that ancient church practice, when the celebration of Easter took place on the evening of that day, which was a fast in memory of the crucifixion of the Lord and which was all called Easter. Easter, therefore, was then a half-sad, half-joyful celebration, in other words, as joyful as it was sad, which was the whole life of the Christians of that time, who mixed tears of heavenly joy about God with tears of unbearable earthly grief. The original Easter of Christians could not have been anything other than this combination of fasting and joy on one day. It is easy to imagine how the first Christians, who had not yet abandoned Jewish holidays, must have felt when the 14th of Nisan arrived. Memories as sad as joyful and bright must have crowded into their souls on this day. The image of the Crucified One on this day was replaced by the image of the Risen One with the word “Rejoice” on his lips. The Passover lamb resembled the Lamb of God slain on the cross. I wanted to cry, fast, and rejoice and celebrate together. In those hours of this day, when the Divine Sufferer was melting away in his death throes on the cross, it was natural to fast; in the evening of the day, when He rested from the works of new creation and began His sabbath in the tomb, it was fitting, as it is now done in the Orthodox Church, to begin the joy of the resurrection. So, here is the most ancient, in all likelihood, grain of Great Lent - those few hours of the 14th of Nisan, in which the Savior hung on the cross. This assumption would well explain why, under St. Irenaeus, some “measured” the pre-Easter fast for hours. Since the apostles celebrated Jewish holidays, in this form the beginning of this fast could have been laid by them. Hence the Church’s ever-present conviction of the apostolic origin of this fast. The second oldest evidence of the pre-Easter fast is three passages from the writings of Tertullian (†220). Having become a Montanist, Tertullian wrote in defense of the Montanists, whom the Orthodox accused, among other things, of establishing new fasts, not handed down from the fathers, and long ones at that (with a tendency to strengthen church discipline), a special essay “On Fasting.” In it, by the way, in defense of the Montanists, he says that fasting is not alien to church Christians. “They think that in the Gospel itself those days are designated for fasting on which “the Bridegroom was taken away”; and only these days do they consider the legitimate days of Christian fasting” 37 “But,” the polemicist notes in another place in his work, “I find you fasting in addition to Easter beyond (cutra) those days on which the Bridegroom was taken away: you also observe semi-fasts (stationum, i.e. Wednesdays and Fridays), and sometimes you are content with bread and water, as you please; you, of course, will say that this should be done at will, and not by order” 38. In his essay “On Prayer,” written in the pre-Montana period, Tertullian notes that the usual kissing of each other after prayer “we rightly abandon on Easter Day, on which a general and, as it were, public fast is established” 39 . In all three places, Tertullian is clearly talking about the pre-Easter fast, or, as it should have been more accurately called according to the terminology of that time, the Easter fast, which fell on the day of the Jewish Passover, the day of the death of Christ; This Easter, spent in fasting, subsequently began to be distinguished from the Easter of the resurrection under the name “Godmother”. But the fast was not limited to one day of Christ’s death, but continued for several days. Tertullian does not name the number of these days, but indicates the principle for their number. This principle not only makes it possible to accurately establish the duration of the Easter fast, but also illuminates for us the grounds that the Church of that time found in the Gospel itself for this fast and which, therefore, prompted it to establish it. We owe it to Tertullian alone for preserving for us this precious information from the internal history of Great Lent, and his testimony is all the more important for us because it dates back to that early period of this history, when the memory of the establishment of Lent could not help but be very fresh in the consciousness of the Church. From Tertullian we learn that the generally accepted basis for maintaining the pre-Easter fast in his time, and therefore the most likely motive for its relatively recent establishment, were the words of Christ in response to the reproach from John’s disciples to Him for the absence of St. community of any fasts: “Can the sons of the bridal chamber grieve while the bridegroom is with them; but the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast” (Matthew 9:15). Understanding with touching simplicity and literality by “days” a short period of time in which the Bridegroom was taken away from the Apostolic Church, which elapsed from the death of the Savior until His resurrection, we came to the idea of ​​fasting then. This period of time could not have been more than two days, and even then incomplete, since Christ died on Friday evening and was resurrected on Saturday night. And in terms of the number of hours, this period almost corresponds to the 40 hours that, according to St. Irenaeus, in some churches the duration of the pre-Easter fast was limited. We see that Tertullian does not yet know the real, in the proper sense of the word, Pentecost, but only the same small rudiment of it as Irenaeus. One can say more: Tertullian’s pre-Easter fast is no longer than that of Irenaeus, and no more established than his. True, Tertullian does not indicate the duration of the pre-Easter fast. They find it possible to explain this reticence in the sense that among the Orthodox with whom he polemicized, Pentecost already existed; otherwise he, as a Montanist and their accuser, would not have failed to reproach his opponents for the absence of it 40. This argument, as the newest German historian of Lent, Funk 41 rightly notes, turns the situation upside down. If Tertullian needed to justify the longer Montanist fasts before short church fasts, then he had to point to the longest practice that existed anywhere, and could no longer leave without mentioning any church if it then already had a forty-day fast; He would have struck his opponents most easily and quickly by making the following remark: the practice of fasting among the Montanists, who are accused of an illegal innovation, does not go as far as the church, since their fast lasted only two weeks (among the Montanists the pre-Easter fast was two weeks), and in Rome it was 40 days. If the testimony of Irenaeus can speak about the practice of the Asia Minor churches in relation to the pre-Easter fast, and the testimony of Tertullian about the same practice of the Roman and African churches, then two other monuments reveal to us the state of affairs in two more large areas of the then Christian world, thus giving us the opportunity to embrace it all in the relevant respect. At the same time, these monuments, being several decades younger than those considered, introduce us to the further stage of development of the pre-Easter fast, when it spread from two to three days to the entire week before Easter. The earliest of this new evidence of fasting is found in a recently discovered monument bearing the title “Apostolic Instruction” (Διδασκαλ ί α), preserved in Syriac and half of it in Latin and appearing in Syria before the middle of the 3rd century, perhaps in the first quarter of it. The venerable antiquity and authority of this monument can be evidenced by the fact that, according to the assumption of its researchers, it underlies the first 6 books of the so-called “Apostolic Constitutions” (Constitutiones), which are a reworking of it. About the pre-Easter fast, the monument says: “From the tenth [day of the lunar month], which is the second day of the week [Monday], on the days of Easter you will fast, and consume bread, salt, and water alone at the ninth hour, and so on until the fifth day of the week [Thursday]; But fast the whole of Friday and Saturday, without eating anything.” Chapter 18 of Book V of the Apostolic Constitutions, according to scholars, is a reworking of this passage: it adds vegetables as food permitted for the first days of Holy Week 42 . The desire of this monument to sanctify the existing practice of fasting with the authority of the apostles may indicate that it was in any case not recent, although perhaps not generally recognized. In rich and pampered Alexandria, apparently, this then-only one-week pre-Easter fast was observed with less strictness and with great difficulty pushed aside the previous, easier practice. Dionysius the Great, Bishop of Alexandria (†264–265), was asked by Bishop Basilides when the Easter fast should end - either on Saturday evening or on Sunday morning at the crowing of the rooster, as is done in Rome. Having expressed his view on the various dates for the end of fasting, the Alexandrian bishop adds: “And the six days of fasting are not observed by everyone equally and in the same way; for some spend all their days without food, and others not a single one; for those who are very weak from prolonged fasting and are almost dying from exhaustion, eating food earlier is forgiven; but if the other four preceding days of fasting not only did not fast without a break, but also did not fast at all and even indulged in luxury even then, when the last two days come, i.e. Friday and Saturday, they fast continuously and think that they are doing something great and glorious; if they abstain until the morning, then I think that they were not in such a feat, who practiced a few days earlier” 43. The passage shows that in Egypt, as in Syria, they had already fasted for a whole week before Easter; Holy Week had already formed; but that along with great severity in fasting this week there was also freedom in observing it. The fact that Dionysius does not directly condemn this latter practice, although he is far from sympathizing with it, shows that fasting for the entire week had not yet received legally binding force, that it was still too new for this. All the less could there be talk of a forty-day fast before Easter at this time. Meanwhile, the contemporary and fellow citizen of Dionysius, the famous Origen (†254), speaks specifically about the forty-day fast before Easter. This evidence is found in his 10th conversation on the book of Leviticus, a commentary on which, like most of the works of the great Alexandrian, has come to us not in the original, but in the Latin translation of the above-mentioned Rufinus. Pointing out the optionality of Jewish fasts for Christians and citing Matt. 9, 15, Origen continues: “So the Jews fast because they have lost the Bridegroom (Christ); We, having the Bridegroom, cannot fast. We say this not to weaken the bit of Christian abstinence. For we also have the days of Lent, dedicated to fasting. We have the fourth and sixth days of the week (Wednesday and Friday), on which we usually fast. The Christian is given the freedom to fast at all times, not because of superstition regarding fasting, but because of the virtue of abstinence” 44. The place would leave no doubt about the existence of the Pentecost under Origen, if not for two circumstances: a) the silence about it of Dionysius, so close to the present witness in place and time, and b) the passage of the document to us through the hands of Rufinus. Rufinus was a very free translator, which he not only admits, but also repeatedly warns the reader about, for example, in the preface to the translation of Origen’s work “Περιὶ ἀοχῶν”. And in the afterword to the translation of Origen’s commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, he notes about his work: “We complete what Origen said for the Church of his time, not so much for the purpose of explanation, but for the purpose of edification, as we did in the homilies or words on Genesis and Exodus; especially in the homilies on the book of Leviticus, what was said to them for the sake of beauty of style, we convey in direct language for clarity; We undertook this work of filling in what was missing so that the Latin reader would not be presented with difficulties by questions raised and left unresolved, as Origen usually does according to the requirements of homiletical art.” Since the translation was based on such principles, then, as the publisher of Origen notes in the Patrology of Min, the reader can never be sure whether he is reading Origen or Rufinus 45. True, such a wide freedom of translation should not extend to such purely factual data from Origen as an indication of the existence of fasting during his time. But here one involuntarily recalls Rufinus’s translation of Irenaeus’s words about 40 hours of fasting... In addition, in the expression “the days of Lent dedicated to fasting” one also draws attention to the inappropriate ornateness of the phrase, which does not correspond to the simplicity of the following: “... we fast on both Wednesday and Friday” 46. And most importantly, how does Dionysius not mention the Pentecost? However, it would be risky to insist decisively on Rufinus's interpolation at this point. There is a very simple way out of the difficulty created by the disagreement on this point between Origen and Dionysius. Origen had two fatherlands, besides Egypt and Alexandria, Palestine and Caesarea. Having lived so much in the latter, he could not only know well all the church practices of the Holy Land, but also get used to it and become comfortable with it and appreciate it. Meanwhile, we have no information about the practice in relation to fasting specifically in the Jerusalem Church during this period, although we have it about all the surrounding churches. Why not accept Origen as such a witness to this practice? At the beginning of the 4th century, as we will see later, we find the post of St. Pentecostals became widespread throughout the Christian world. Local councils pronounce reproaches on those who do not comply with it. For such a wide spread of the institution, time and authority were required. Just a decade was not enough here. Long relations between the churches were necessary for the forty-day fast to be established everywhere in place of the usual and easier week-long or even two-day fast. On the other hand, initiative in this matter was needed not from any church, but especially from an influential one, and most importantly, one that was in lively and constant communication with others. This was the “mother of churches” at that time, the Jerusalem Church. And where could the idea of ​​a forty-day fast after Epiphany and before Easter most easily arise, if not on the banks of the Jordan at the foot of the harsh Mount Carantana, with which tradition connects the fast of the Savior? From the second half of the 3rd century, we have another evidence of the forty-day duration of the pre-Easter fast, concerning a church no less influential than the Jerusalem one - namely the Roman Church. The so-called “Canons of St. Hippolyta" (canon 20). Hippolytus was either pope or bishop of the Roman harbor and suffered around the half of the 3rd century. 47. But his “Canons” are a controversial monument. They have survived to us in a highly interpolated Arabic translation; but, judging by the fact that they form the basis of the so-called “Egyptian Canons,” a monument of pre-Constantinian times, there is reason to consider them, if not genuine Hippolytus, then, in any case, a monument of church practice in the half of the 3rd century. 48. So, from the 3rd century we have two evidence for the forty-day duration of the pre-Easter fast - evidence, if not completely undeniable, then very reliable. With complete certainty, ancient monuments speak of a forty-day fast before Easter only from the beginning of the 4th century. And the first evidence of this kind is also accidental, like all previous ones - a mention of it in the 5th rule of the Council of Nicaea. This rule assigns for one of the two councils, which must be held annually in every church, the time “before Pentecost” (προ τεσσαρακοστης), indicating as the basis for such a period “so that after the elimination of all differences of opinion 49 we will offer a pure gift to God.” Historical criticism, however, undermines this seemingly undoubted evidence. The foundation put forward by the cathedral, they say, does not correspond to what is being justified. “Offering a pure gift” may mean bloodless sacrifice and communion rather than fasting. Therefore, the question arises whether it is necessary to put “Pentecost” here instead of “Fentercost”. The Council of Antioch in 341 actually appoints Pentecost for the provincial council, precisely the 4th week of it... And this date later turns out to be generally accepted everywhere. With him, there would not have been such a small gap between the autumn council (in October) and the spring one, and the two councils would have been more evenly distributed in time. But even if we recognize these doubts about the integrity of the 5th rule of the Council of Nicaea as valid, then a whole series of evidence from the immediate, immediately subsequent time leaves no doubt about the existence of Pentecost during the time of the 1st Ecumenical Council. Eusebius of Caesarea (†c. 340) writes: “We celebrate Easter, taking upon ourselves a forty-day labor to prepare for it; Before Easter, we strengthen ourselves for 6 weeks with forty days of fasting” 50. Athanasius the Great (†373) mentions Pentecost in his Easter letter of 330 and in other writings 51 . St. repeatedly mentions her. Cyril of Jerusalem (†386) 52. The Council of Laodicea speaks about it c. 360 and St. Epiphanius of Cyprus c. 375 53 . This is in the East. In the West, we find the first evidence of it only in St. Ambrose of Milan (†397) 54. Somewhat later they talk about her. Jerome and Augustine. The latter has a series of teachings for her time. The fact that in the West evidence of Pentecost begins later than in the East is significant. This may indicate that the forty-day duration for the pre-Easter fast was adopted there later. True, the Council of Nicaea speaks of Pentecost as a generally known institution; but this council, although ecumenical, consisted mainly of eastern bishops. But we need to talk about the Western practice of fasting separately, since from the very establishment of Lent there, the West took a completely different path in the development and development of this fast. The transition from a week's fast to a forty-day fast was not so simple and easy that it could be accomplished quickly and easily. If Origen’s testimony about the Pentecost and the “Canons of Hippolytus” are authentic, then three quarters of a century passed from the first news of the pre-Easter fast of such a duration to the widespread spread of the Pentecost. A few cursory remarks from contemporary writers throw some light on this gradual spread. The historian Socrates (born at the end of the 4th century) in his “Ecclesiastical History” says: “The fast before Easter is observed differently in different places; It is in Rome that they fast continuously for three weeks before Easter, except Saturday and the Lord's Day; and in Illyria, throughout Greece and Alexandria, they fast for six weeks before Easter and call it Lent; others begin to fast seven weeks before the holiday” 55. The younger contemporary of Socrates, Sozomen, in his History, strongly dependent on Socrates, repeats this passage from the book of his predecessor, but with characteristic additions and changes: “The so-called Pentecost preceding the Easter holiday, on which the people fast, is considered by some to be six weeks, for example, the Illyrians and Christians living in the west, all of Libya and Egypt with Palestine, others at seven, like the inhabitants of Constantinople and surrounding places to Phenicia; during these six or more weeks, some fast for three weeks at intervals, others for three weeks in a row before the holiday, and others only for two, such as, for example, the followers of Montanus” 56. Both testimonies date back to a time long before which a whole series of testimonies, as we have seen, establish the widespread spread of Pentecost in the Christian world. Next, and at this time the Pentecostal movement was not only far from being fully defined, but also did not receive general recognition. In some places, instead of it, there was a fast, which occupied in duration exactly the middle between the ancient short, from 1 to 6 days, pre-Easter fast and the Lent, namely the twenty-day fast. At the same time, it is characteristic that the latter kind of fasting takes place in the West, where, as we have seen, the evidence of Lent is significantly late compared to the East. From this there is some right to conclude that everywhere a fast of shorter duration mediated the transition from a week-long fast to a forty-day fast. It is also significant that Sozomen no longer names the West, and Rome in particular, as supporters of the three-week fast, although the practice of such fasting is still known to him. It is possible that by his time, Pentecost had pushed the former easier, but also less valuable practice even further 57. But Socrates and Sozomen preserved for us only distant echoes of the almost completed spread of the Fourties by their time. Meanwhile, a document has reached us, which, so to speak, was a living witness to the gradual establishment of a forty-day fast in place of the previous shorter one in one of the most prominent churches of antiquity. The so-called “Easter Epistles” of St. Athanasius of Alexandria, a contemporary of the very Council of Nicaea, one of the canons of which is considered the first reliable testimony about the Fourth Age. In the first of these messages of 329, Pentecost is not mentioned at all, and the beginning of the “holy fast” is timed to coincide with the Monday of Holy Week. Since the fourth and fifth letters of 332–333 also presuppose this order, while in the two previous ones (2 and 3) the Pentecost also takes place near or before the Holy Week, then from the first letter it cannot be concluded that the Pentecost was not yet known in Egypt. The hesitation only shows that the church there was in a stage of transition from the old order to the new. This assumption is already fully authenticated by the message of St. Athanasius to Serapion, added to the 11th Easter Epistle and written in 340 from Rome. The bishop of Tmuis, who during the absence of the Alexandrian archbishop was entrusted with overseeing the entire Egyptian church, is asked in this message to “announce a forty-day fast to the brothers and add an admonition to it, so that when the whole world is fasting, we alone, living in Egypt, will not be ridiculed for not fasting and for the fact that during these days we indulge in joy.” In the 19th Epistle of the year 346, the observance of the Pentecost of St. Athanasius already represents a necessary condition for the worthy celebration of Easter, saying: “Whoever neglects the Four Centenary, who, as if heedless and unclean, enters the Holy of Holies, does not celebrate the holiday of Easter” 58 . There were several phenomena in the life of the 3rd century Church that could have prompted it to extend the pre-Easter fast to 40 days. The first of these phenomena was the strong development in this age of hermitism. Egyptian, Palestinian and Syrian hermits for the first time showed with their own eyes and on an astonishing scale what miracles fasting can do on the soul, promoted by those beneficial influences that Christianity has on a person and which the pagan religions that patronized fasting were deprived of. The Church has become convinced through living examples of what a powerful instrument of beneficial influence and revival it wields in the form of fasting. Naturally, she came up with the idea of ​​using this hitherto little-used means of moral education as widely as possible. Meanwhile, the circumstances of the time, on the other hand, directed the attention of the Church to this remedy. These were the same circumstances that caused the hermitage itself with his fasting. Namely: the weakening of the former Christian zeal. Another Rev. John Cassian (†435) explained the establishment of the Fourth Day this way: “You need to know that this establishment, the Fourth Day, while the primitive perfection remained intact in the Church, did not exist at all. For those who limited themselves to the same fast throughout the year did not limit themselves to the narrow confines of fasting as required by the rule or by any sanction of the law. But over time, the majority of believers, having weakened in this apostolic zeal, began daily to indulge in their own affairs and did not share their property with all the faithful in accordance with the institutions of the apostles, and in caring exclusively about their needs, they did not strive to preserve property only, like Ananias and Sapphira, but to increase it; It was then that all the shepherds decided to call people, bound by everyday worries and almost (as I said) who did not know abstinence and repentance, to call them to a holy cause by canonically establishing fasts and to demand by force, as it were, a legal tithe” 59 . A more immediate and specific reason for the extension of the pre-Easter fast was the so-called catechumenate, i.e., the custom of long and solemn preparation for baptism for those wishing to receive it. Already the “Teaching of the 12 Apostles” requires fasting not only from those preparing for baptism, but also from the Church that receives him into its bosom: “Before baptism, let the baptizer and the baptized, and, if they can, some others fast; but order the person being baptized to fast for a day or two beforehand” 60. St. also speaks about such fasting before baptism. Justin Martyr; according to it, those preparing for baptism “are required to pray, fast, and ask God for forgiveness of previous sins; and we pray and fast with them” 61. Famous catechetical words of St. Cyril of Jerusalem were pronounced during Lent. The 4th Council of Carthage (399) prescribes that those who are to be baptized “after they have been given a name should not receive baptism immediately, but after long abstinence from wine and meat, after the laying on of hands and frequent testing” 62 . There is no indication here of a forty-day period for such preparation; but Pope Siricius (†398) in one letter notes that those baptized were given a name exactly 40 days before baptism, and all this time they were purified by spells, daily prayers and fasts 63 . In the current liturgical regulations there are a number of traces of this purpose of the Pentecost: exactly from half of it, from Wednesday of the 4th week of Lent, at the presanctified liturgy, in addition to the usual litany about the catechumens, a special litany about “those who are preparing for enlightenment (i.e., for baptism)” 64 ; on Holy Saturday and throughout the week of Easter, instead of the Trisagion, “Be baptized into Christ” is sung; the apostle at the liturgy on Holy Saturday from the rite of baptism; and there are so many proverbs in this liturgy, by the way, because during their reading, as we learn from the statute of the Great Church of Constantinople in the 9th century. 65, the patriarch performed baptism. But what is most remarkable in this regard is the following particular of the modern charter: on Lazarus Saturday, instead of the Trisagion at the liturgy, “Be baptized into Christ,” while on Palm Sunday it is the Trisagion. Obviously, on Lazarus Saturday, the baptism of catechumens was also carried out in places, precisely because just 40 days pass from the beginning of Lent. Having timed baptism to coincide with Easter and its fast, as the most sacred time of the year, the Church gradually assigned two other sacraments, which required no less cleansing preparation, to this time, and for the sake of this latter, lengthened the fast. This was the case primarily with repentance, this second baptism. The discipline of repentance, so complex and strict in the first centuries, was most conveniently applied during the pre-Easter fast. Already the Council of Ancyra (314–315) designated Easter as the time both for accepting a penitent into the church and for transferring him from the lowest category of repentance to the highest. “Let them be accepted into the ranks of those who listen to the scriptures until the great day of Easter,” he decreed regarding those who ate sacrifices to idols during the persecution 66 . According to Gregory of Nyssa (†after 394), “on the day of Easter we not only bring to God those who are transformed by rebirth in the font of grace, but also those who, through repentance and conversion from dead works, begin to eternal life” 67. Thus, the current custom of fasting during Lent arose almost simultaneously with the fast itself. Hence the predominantly penitential content of the service during Great Lent. The memory of this purpose of Pentecost in the Roman Church is the rite of the so-called “blessing of the ashes” on the first day of the Roman Catholic Pentecost (on Wednesday of the first week of our fast). When the custom of weekly communion with St. The mysteries of all believers, Pentecost became a preparation for the worthy acceptance of this sacrament, which was timed either to coincide with the day of its establishment by the Savior - Maundy Thursday, or to Easter. “Once upon a time many,” says St. Chrysostom, - frivolously and without reasoning they approached St. Mysteries and even on the day when Christ instituted them. Therefore, since the fathers saw how much harm was caused by recklessly approaching them, they agreed and appointed 40 days of fasting... 68 so that, having been cleansed of sins that had stuck in every way during the year, we with spiritual vigor would become partakers of this bloodless Sacrifice” 69. Elsewhere, Chrysostom notes that everyone in his time used Pentecost “for proper preparation for receiving communion on the Easter holiday.” Bl. Jerome also says that by “the feat of fasting” “the Lord prepares our souls for eating His body” 70 . The memory of the ancient custom of communion with everyone on Easter remained in the current service for communion on Easter, “Receive the Body of Christ,” a verse, although constantly sung during the communion of the laity, but as a “sacrament” placed only on Easter. When the pre-Easter fast became a forty-day fast from a week-long fast, it had one more stage to go through in order to obtain the form, or rather, the duration, that it currently has. As you know, now Great Lent, although called Lent, lasts not 40 days, but 48. This is because Holy Week is not included in Lent, but is considered as an independent fast. This order of fasting, one might think, arose simultaneously with another practice that limited fasting to 40 days only, therefore, including Holy Week in Lent. From the above testimonies of Socrates and Sozomen, we learn exactly where and which of these orders prevailed in their time. The practice of six-week fasting was adopted mainly in Rome, but, besides it, in Illyria, Greece, Egypt, and, according to Sozomen, in Palestine. Where a six-week fast was adopted, it began on Monday of the sixth week before Easter, i.e., from Monday of the second week of the current Orthodox fast. Consequently, the entire current first week of Lent was not included in Lent with this practice. The memory of this practice, which is not followed now, and the main supporter of it in ancient times, the Roman Church, remained in this last church that the secret prayer of this Monday, which now falls in the Roman Church as the sixth day of Lent, begins with the words: “We solemnly offer the sacrifice of the beginning of Pentecost” 71. That the six-week period for Easter fasting was adopted, besides Rome, in some churches of the East, about this, besides Socrates and Sozomen, there is other evidence that fully confirms the accuracy of the topographical instructions of these historians. The above two testimonies about the Pentecost of Eusebius of Caesarea make it clear that the author knew of a pre-Easter fast of only forty days in duration. St. Athanasius the Great in one Easter message gives the following terms for the upcoming Easter year: “We will begin a forty-day fast on the 13th of Famenot (March 9); then, having completed the fast, we begin the Holy Week. Easter holiday [as can be seen from the subsequent Holy Week] on the 18th Farmuti (April 13) and stop it [lit. “we rest from it"] on the 23rd of Farmuti, and then on the 24th we celebrate Sunday; and to these days we add 7 weeks of the great holiday of Pentecost (Easter, therefore, fell on April 19 that year) 72. The pre-Easter fast in Alexandria and under Patriarch Theophilus (385-412), in whose Easter message the following terms were given, was not long. 30th Mehir (February 24) beginning of Lent, 5th Farmuti (March 31) Holy Week, 11th Farmuti (April 6) - Easter 73. The extension of the forty-day fast to 7 weeks was caused by the fact that the number of fasting days should not have included not only Sundays that fell during Pentecost, but, according to the view of the Eastern Church, Saturdays as well. Thanks to these exceptions, a pre-Easter fast of forty days only would not give 40 days of fasting and would not correspond to the idea of ​​Lent. With the exception of some Sundays, the six-week fast, however, still gave a significant number 36 (6x6), which Pope Leo the Great explained as a tithe to God from the entire year 74. But since in the East Saturday was excluded from the number of fast days, in order to get at least the number 36 for the fast days of the pre-Easter fast, it was necessary to lengthen it to 7 weeks (5 x 735; with the addition of Holy Saturday-36) 75 . Meanwhile, the Eastern Church has always held the view of Saturday that it is impossible to fast on this day. When, as a result of the retreat of the Roman Church from this ancient prohibition, Eastern church legislation began to remind us of it with particular insistence, 76 it is natural that those Eastern churches that had hitherto had a six-week fast before Easter adopted a seven-week fast. In the very Jerusalem church in which Eusebius and, perhaps, Cyril of Jerusalem (who said on Good Friday: “these past days of Lent”) 77 know the forty-day fast, a pilgrim of the 4th century. Sylvia from Aquitaine states that there are already 8 (!) weeks of pre-Easter fasting. If this figure is doubtful for its magnitude, then Peter, Patriarch of Jerusalem 524-544, testifies 78 to a seven-week fast in his church. John, Bishop of Athens (c. 680), and Anastasius, Patriarch of Constantinople, in an encyclical of 782, testify to the same fast in Greece. Such fasting should have become widespread in the East no later than the 5th century, judging by the fact that the apostolic decrees legitimize it 79, and St. Epiphanius of Cyprus (†403) speaks of it as generally recognized in the Church 80. With the firm final and universal establishment of the forty-day duration of fasting, it became a very impressive institution in the Church in terms of its external magnitude, so that in the eyes of the latter its internal significance would not grow too much. It is not surprising that the writers and writings of the 4th and 5th centuries do not find words to depict the importance and inviolability of this institution. It is known that the “Apostolic Rules”, a monument perhaps older than the 4th century, are already being read in the name of St. of the apostles, the clergy was deposed (from the priesthood), and the layman was excommunicated (from communion, since the period is not specified, it is clearly until correction) for non-observance of Pentecost 81. “Which Christian does not fast on St. Pentecost, says St. Ambrose of Milan († 897) - he reveals treachery and stubbornness. What kind of Christian are you if you are satiated while the Lord was fasting?” 82. “Fast on other days,” says Bl. Augustine, - there is medicine or merit; not fasting on Lent is a sin” 83. § 3. The image of fasting in historical development. The prototype of Christian fasting was Jewish fasting. If the “lenten testament” was given to the Christian Church by Christ himself and His apostles, then initially fasting in the Church from the outside could not be different from that of the Jews in the Old Testament. Just as the apostles, who by origin and upbringing were Jews and observed Old Testament holidays and rituals, had to fast in the Jewish way, so did the first Christians. God, through Moses, instituted only one day of fasting, the day of atonement. But since the main thing on this day was not fasting, but special sacrifices and rituals during them, then only these sacrifices and rituals are described in all detail in the regulations of the books of Leviticus (chapter 16) about this day; about his pastime it is said in the following, not entirely definite way: “Humble your souls and do no work.” As can be seen from the Jewish midrash (ancient interpretation) on this section of the book of Leviticus, the Jews had long-standing scholarly disputes regarding how to understand the expression “humble (more precisely, exhaust) your souls.” Most rabbis thought that this expression prohibited the consumption of a certain type of sacrificial meat, or meat that had been lying around, carrion 84 . Only one rabbi expressed the opinion that this meant abstaining from food in general: “On behalf of R. They said to Ishmael: here it is said: “Weary your souls” and there (Deut. 8:3) it is said: “He exhausted you, tormented you with hunger”: just as there by “exhaustion” we mean fasting, so here by “exhaustion” we mean abstinence from food” 85. This last explanation of the divine command was accepted by ancient Jewry, but with some limitation: in addition to abstaining from food, other methods of “exhausting the soul” were recommended, although abstinence from food was considered the main thing and put in first place. “On the day of purification, eating, drinking, washing, anointing, putting on sandals and intercourse are prohibited,” says the main Talmudic injunction on the regime of the day of purification 86. The prohibition to eat and drink on the day of purification was unconditional, as is explained further. “Whoever ate a food substance the size of a date, counting it together with the stone, and whoever drank a full sip of the drink, is subject to punishment” 87. “A man was fasting and, forgetting, ate and drank; he ends his fast,” says another treatise of the Talmud, the special “On Fasting” 88, in which all the instructions about the regime of the day of purification are attached to any fast, not only public, but also private 89, with the only exception for the latter that private fasting can begin in the morning, and not from the evening preceding fasting 90. As for the time of day when the fast ended, there are no specific instructions about this in the Talmud. Although the holy day ended in the evening for the Jews, the fast apparently continued until the morning of the next day. This is evident from the Talmud's permission to eat before the onset of the Sabbath, if fasting occurred on Friday 91. The first Christians also had to imagine fasting in the form of complete non-eating. In addition to the fact that Christianity borrowed the image of fasting from the Jews, this is evidenced, so to speak, by the ritual remnant of such fasting in modern church practice. As we have seen, the current church charter for the three days of Lent requires fasting in precisely this form. It is significant that among these days Good Friday is also indicated, the day of the Lord’s crucifixion, which, according to the most probable assumption, was originally supposed to be limited to the pre-Easter fast. In the church rule of fasting on Good Friday, therefore, one must see the memory of the most ancient form of the pre-Easter fast, the form that it should have had, as we will see now, in the 1st century, if it existed then at least in the rudimentary form of one day. Even in the 4th and 5th centuries, the most zealous Christians, apparently, did not want to know another fast during the entire Lent. “Some go for two whole days without food,” says St. Chrysostom Evagrius (after 594) writes about the Palestinian hermits that they do not eat for 2, 3 and 5 days, that is, all the days on which fasting is required (fasting was prohibited on Saturday and Sunday) 92 . Already the 1st century writer Hermas knows, in addition to this form of fasting, more precisely, this image of fasting (in the form of complete non-eating) and another, easier one. “On the day on which you fast, eat nothing except bread and water,” says the shepherd to Herma. But it should be noted that from these words it is very difficult to draw any conclusion about the way of fasting of the Christians of that time. The fact is that this is only instruction, advice to Herma from his heavenly leader. Instruction often does not confirm the status quo, but changes it. And Erma here does not at all intend to describe the practice of fasting that existed in his time. To the shepherd’s question: “How do you fast?” - he answers: “As I fasted as usual, so I fast,” and then receives the reproach: “You do not know how to fast to God, and the fast that you perform is useless.” From the further instructions of the shepherd it is clear that the main drawback he saw in the practice of fasting at that time was the absence of the so-called “spiritual fast”, i.e. abstinence from sins. But besides this significant shortcoming, the shepherd sees in the fasting of that time some kind of external, so to speak, physical deficiency, and he hints at this with the requirement to consume only bread and water on the day of fasting. Obviously, some of the Christians of that time, continuing their abstinence on Wednesday and Friday (these are the fasts that Hermas is talking about here: they are called “days of standing”) until the evening, ate regular food in the evening, as Jews do now during some of their fasts, probably based on ancient practice. Erma does not approve of this practice and would like the food on fast days, since eating it is already allowed, to be the simplest - bread and water, indicating the basis and purpose for this requirement: “Having calculated the expenses that you would make on this day for food, following the example of other days, set aside what is left from this day and give it to the widow, orphan or poor.” In this place of Herma, we thus have evidence of the first emergence of an independent Christian way of fasting, different, at least, already beginning to diverge from Jewish fasting: in addition to complete non-eating during the day, the need to add some limitation in the type of food is already recognized. One can say even more: it is considered possible to replace complete non-eating by eating scanty food, such food, which later received the name “dry eating”. Judging by the fact that this way of fasting is only recommended, we can say about it that its idea was just beginning to emerge in Christian society, which for the most part followed the Jewish practice of fasting in the form of complete non-eating, probably with an evening allowance for all food. But it should be noted that this idea in Christianity was not, so to speak, completely original and could have been instilled in it by Jewish practice. In the Talmud, on the eve of fasting, it is forbidden to “eat two dishes, eat meat and drink wine” 93 . Ancient Jewish practice, therefore, was also not alien to the idea of ​​limiting the type of food; but since the entire day of fasting was spent in complete non-eating, this restriction was transferred to the eve of fasting. The replacement of complete non-eating with meager food occurred when the fast of one week was extended to 40 days. “One must fast throughout Lent with dry eating,” confirms the Council of Laodicea (8th Ave. - regarding the custom of some to allow fasting on Holy Thursday), as well as the Apostolic Constitutions 94. John Chrysostom says that during the entire Lent, some ate only bread and water, or at least did not consume wine, oil and other seasonings for food 95. Bl. Jerome says: “The strictest fast consists of water and bread” 96. Although fasting already so early in Christianity began to replace the Jewish form of its complete non-eating with another - a restriction in the type of food - and could even do this under the influence of Jewish practice itself, nevertheless, for a long time in the Christian Church, fasting could not be presented otherwise than under the first form - in the form of non-eating, at least until the evening. In particular, it was Lent, as the oldest, that was performed for a long time only in this way and continued to be performed in this way even when it received a forty-day duration and when such fasting became very difficult. Not to mention the times of St. Irenaeus, when for those who “measured” the pre-Easter fast by 40 hours, another way of fasting was unthinkable, even in the 4th and 5th centuries the days of Pentecost are spent in non-eating until the evening. “Wait a little (with food): the end of the day is soon,” says St. Ambrose 97. “You wait until evening to eat, but spend the whole day in court,” the saint denounced. Basil the Great to his listeners during Lent 98. “Let us not think that just not eating until evening is enough for our salvation,” said St. Chrysostom, “what is the use of fasting, tell me, if you don’t eat for whole days, but indulge in games, jokes, even perjury and slander all day long” 99. In particular and more specifically, this non-eating was expressed in the abolition of lunch for fasting days (in the terminology of that time, breakfast, prandium) and contentment with one dinner (soena). “During the days of fasting,” exhorts Bl. Augustine, “what we use for lunch, we will use for the poor, and not for preparing luxurious dinners with dishes for the most refined tastes” 100. “As much as it dries out in the body,” Peter Chrysologus denounces his contemporaries, “the fuller it is in the wallet; but while fasting, let’s give our lunch to the poor” 101. The current church charter also considers “one meal”, eating once a day, a necessary condition for fasting; but this acceptance is timed not to coincide with lunch or dinner, but in the period of time between them, namely or after Vespers, which in this case takes place somewhat earlier, immediately after the hours, as in Great Lent, or at 3 pm before Vespers, as on other fast days - Wednesdays and Fridays, etc. 102. When two meals a day are allowed, the statute does not consider this to be fasting, even if fish were prohibited on such a day; for example, about the Christmas Eves of the Nativity of Christ and Epiphany, which fall on Saturday or Sunday, the charter says: “There is no fasting,” but meanwhile at the meal “we eat stew with oil, but we don’t eat fish” 103. And this is because in this case there is a meal both after the Liturgy and after Vespers: “After the dismissal of the Liturgy, we do not go to the meal, but in the vestibule of the church, to those who sit in the vestibule, the refector gives us a piece of bread, or a small loaf of wheat, and a few figs and dates, and a single cup of wine, lest it be called fasting” 104 . “After dismissal, we eat vespers with oil” 105. One meal a day in the charter is provided only for those days on which dry eating is required 106. This is considered in the current charter to be a fast in the proper sense. And such fasting is only required for five days of each ordinary week of Great Lent (excluding the first and Holy Week, where there are special rules). On Saturday and Sunday, when two meals are required and vegetable oil and wine are allowed, there is no actual fasting. And this order of fasting was adopted already in the 4th century. “On Pentecost they fast for whole days, except Saturday and Sunday,” says St. Ambrose 107. Basil the Great also testifies that in his time they fasted only 5 days a week during Lent 108. St. Chrysostom calls Saturday and Sunday days of rest for the ascetics of Lent 109. These days, Saturday and Sunday, on which fasting was not only not recommended, but was strictly forbidden 110, constantly interrupting the Pentecost several times, posed a difficult dilemma for the church canons: either to deviate from the ancient custom of not fasting on these days, or to sacrifice the high, which immediately after its establishment gained great sympathy in the Christian world and became widespread, by the establishment of the Pentecost, turning it from an integral, continuous forty days of fasting in 6, 7 five-day fasts. The only way out of the difficulty was to invent a form of fasting for Saturday and Sunday that, not being fasting in the proper sense, would not interrupt the fast of Lent too abruptly. We have seen that Jewish practice, which could not help but serve as a ritual model for the church in early times, outlined this form of fasting for the Church, prohibiting the consumption of meat (and wine) on pre-Lent days. Meanwhile, in general, the idea of ​​vegetarianism in the form of abstinence from meat has never been alien to humanity, although it seemed generally not completely feasible or not soon feasible (in those times when “the wolf will graze with the lamb”). All this could not help but direct the thought of the Church towards the possibility of this kind of restriction in food, as a restriction that, far from being fasting, at the same time would be close to it. “We fast,” says Cyril of Jerusalem, “abstaining from wine and meat” 111. But if for the first two forms of fasting - complete abstinence and “dry eating” (eating only bread) - there were ready-made models for the Church (in Jewish practice) and these forms were completely natural and suggested by themselves, then this form of fasting in the form of abstinence from certain types of food with the permission of others, although it was not news for the ancient world (there were even philosophical schools that prohibited certain types of food, for example, Pythagorean beans), but it was a more artificial and complex form in order to be developed easily and quickly. In the same Socrates the historian, who introduces us to the gradual lengthening of the pre-Easter fast from a week to a forty-day fast, we also find information about the, so to speak, evolution that this form of fasting experienced, i.e. abstinence from meat. “The disagreement,” says Socrates, “concerns not only the number of fasting days, but also the concept of abstinence from food; because some abstain from eating all kinds of animals, others of all animate animals eat only fish, and some eat birds along with fish, saying that birds, according to the legend of Moses, also came from water. Some even abstain from fruits and eggs, others eat only dry bread, some do not take even that, and others, fasting until the ninth hour, then eat all kinds of food” 112. Sozomen, who generally repeats Socrates, does not note this difference in the fasting of Lent, pointing only to the difference in its duration. Thus, very soon after abstinence from meat was accepted in the Church as one of the possible forms of fasting, an exception was made for certain types of meat, not only for fish, as now, but also for birds. But the last kind of exception, as having no basis for itself, soon disappeared, and only the first remained. The permission to eat fish during Lent could be guided by the following considerations: 1) God’s curse after the Fall was directed specifically at the earth, and not at the waters and their inhabitants; 2) fish belong to the element with which baptism is associated; 3) in the history of creation it is said: “The Spirit of God hovered over the waters” 113. Now the church practice of fasting had to establish a certain relationship with other foods, namely eggs and milk. In this regard, too, there were “disagreements” and hesitations, which, as we have seen, Socrates also mentions. According to him, on Lent (more precisely, probably on the days of its less strict fast - Saturday and Sunday), some “abstain even from fruits and eggs.” Obviously, in the time of the historian there was no distinction between persons and vegetables in relation to fasting. Judging by the fact that in the Roman Catholic Church milk and eggs are still considered Lenten foods and are allowed at least on the Sundays of Lent, one can think that such a custom has long been accepted in this church. Besides this, this practice was adopted in the Armenian Church. This practice was condemned by the Trullo Council 114, and only Armenians were named as followers. But since the rule of the council condemns Roman Christians only for fasting on Saturday, one can think that by the time of the council this practice had been abandoned in Rome, if it had existed there before, and then, by the time of the division of the churches, it was restored. Cheese Week remains a monument to her in the Orthodox Church. So, approximately by the 8th century. The current form of Great Lent has finally been developed in the Orthodox Church in relation to the image of fasting. However, by this time it had been developed only in its main features, but not in detail. The norm of fasting was not recognized as complete abstinence, which was impossible for such a long fast, but a meager diet consisting of bread and water or close in simplicity to this - from the plants of the earth, with such food being taken once a day in the evening (for an early dinner). This regime was considered necessary only for five days of each week of fasting. For Saturday and Sunday, it was not only not considered necessary, but was directly prohibited. For these days, a light, barely noticeable way of fasting was established, established with long and considerable fluctuations, but by the end of this period it was completely determined. Of course, animal and poultry meat, milk and eggs were considered unacceptable for consumption these days. Wine, which was placed not only by Jewish but also by early Christian practice 115 in relation to the Lenten regime on the same level as meat, is recognized as a Lenten food product, as is fish. The permissibility of the last two foods during fasting can be concluded both from the silence about their inadmissibility in the cathedral rules concerning this subject, and from the fact that in the practice of subsequent times, starting from the 9th century, these food products are unanimously recognized as not violating fasting. Church practice of later times has preserved unchanged these basic principles of fasting, developed by the golden and silver periods of church history, and only developed their application in all particulars and details, always trying to remain faithful to the precepts of holy antiquity. From this careful centuries-long development, which ended approximately in the 14th century, the century of the final formation of the church charter now in force in our country (Jerusalem), or, rather, which remained not completely completed, the rules of fasting of the current charter, given by the Triodion and the Typikon, arose. To paint a picture of their development to their modern form, it is necessary to give an idea of ​​​​those monuments that form the material for this history. This is a series of ancient statutes or typikons of various Eastern and Russian monasteries, reflecting the practice in force in their time, although, perhaps, sometimes making slight changes to it. A number of such statutes begin with the “Testament” (ϒ ποτύπωσις), attributed to St. Theodore the Studite, perhaps unfoundedly, but in any case a monument to his time approximately (IX century) and formed the basis of the so-called Studite charter. Then follows the “Testament” (Κανών καϊτύπος or Διατύπωσις) of St. Athanasius of Athos (†1000), similar to the first; typicon of Patriarch Alexei of Constantinople (1025–1043) in a handwritten Slavic translation (in the Moscow Synodal Library); typicon given in 1118 by Empress Irene to the Constantinople women's monastery of the Holy Mother of God; typicon of the Pandocrator Monastery of Constantinople, given to it by Emperor John Komnenos in 1136; typicon given by Leo, bishop of Argos and Nauplia in 1142 to one monastery; typicon of the Evergetian monastery of Constantinople, written between 1143–1152; typicon given in 1152 Emperor Isaac Komnenos to one Asia Minor monastery; typicon given in 1192 by St. Savva the Serbian Hilandar Athos Monastery; typicons of monasteries - St. Constantinople. Mamanta from 1146 and Asia Minor St. Elijah from 1162, the Cypriot Mother of God 1210, given to him by Hieromonk Neil; "Orbel Triodion" XII-XIII centuries. in the Slavic manuscript of the Imperial Public Library; Slavic typicon of 1553 in the manuscript of the Moscow Synodal Library 116. This should also include the Taktikon of Nikon the Montenegrin of the 14th century and the Nomocanon of the Great Breviary, compiled in the 15th-16th centuries. Comparing the prescription of the current charter about the fasting regime of one or another day or an entire period of fasting with the same prescriptions of the listed charters, we clearly see what kind of evolution each of these instructions has undergone. Sometimes the instructions of the current charter, given in the Lenten Triodion and Chapter 32. The typicons regarding fasting on the same day, at first glance, do not agree with each other. The oldest surviving charter of the fast ϒ ποτύπωσις of St. Theodore the Studite of the 9th century, as well as the “Testament” of St. Athanasius of Athos in the 10th century, prescribed the following meal for the first week of Lent: one afternoon pickles (ɑ λμαία, e.g. sauerkraut) without oil, dried figs 5 each and, if possible, chestnuts, and dried pears and plums. As a drink, instead of wine, the so-called eukraton (literally “pleasant mixture”) of pepper, cumin, anise and warm water is prescribed for the entire Pentecost, excluding more solemn days (the same drink in the statute of St. Alexei is called “rivithina’s ear” 117, and in the Orbel Triodion “jukho slanitkovo with piprem (pepper of St. Alexei) and honey.” The same statute is given for the first week in the charter of P. Alexey with the addition of a restriction on bread: bread “in a single quarter” (but with the addition of boiled plums) a restriction regarding bread is also introduced by the Typikon of the Pandocrator Monastery of 1136: “In the first week, less bread than usual will be offered, one piece at a time.” Restrictions are also introduced for others permitted by St. Theodore of products: in the typikons of Irenaeus and Evergetides, only soaked beans (sochivo) and raw greens or vegetables are allowed, according to the first - “maybe fruits.” But very early on, this regime began to intensify for some days of the first week, and, of course, above all, for the first day of fasting. Thus, the Typikon of the Pandocrator Monastery already notes: “If some wish to spend this first day without food, as is the custom of many, then they are allowed to do this at their own discretion.” Typicon of the imp. Irene 1118 and Evergetidsky XII century. food is prohibited on the first day, and the Orbel Triodion on the first two days. On the other hand, there is a tendency towards a softening in some ways of ancient severity. The Typicon of the Pandocrator Monastery allows wine for the first week, only less than usual; The Orbel Triodion permits it for the sick and old. The result of all these trends in the development of a fasting regime for the first week of Great Lent was probably the current charter of her fast, which Triodion and Chapter 49. The Typikon sets out in more detail than Chapter 82. Typicon. In the first place, the charter reads: “Do not perform presanctification even before Wednesday, for which you must fast according to tradition for the entire brotherhood; Let him who is able continue to fast until heel. The Holy Mountain Typik does not at all command food on the first day; on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday it is appropriate to eat one liter of bread, and water, and nothing else, except requiring salt with the bread.” Here, regarding the manner of fasting in the first five days, a double practice is indicated and, as is often done in the Charter with the rules of fasting, everyone is invited to choose whichever one they like. According to the first practice, apparently, they did not eat anything until Wednesday. And precisely in order not to violate such a strict fast, the charter notes, the first two days of fasting do not have a liturgy for the presanctified (since during the liturgy the partaking of the Holy Gifts is inevitable). This practice is obviously considered the best by the charter, which is why it is put in first place and thereby elevated to a kind of law. This injunction of the charter, unclear due to its brevity (given here in passing), is already stated quite clearly (in more detail) in Chapter 32 of the Typikon, which deals specifically with the Lenten regime of Lent. “On the holy and great 40th, the first day of the 1st week, this is on Monday, it is by no means appropriate to eat, and so on the second.” The rule, of course, is not easy, and therefore the charter immediately makes the remark: “He who cannot save the first two days eats bread and kvass at Vespers on Tuesday [not on Monday!]; And the old people do the same.” No matter how difficult such a fast is, the charter (in the first place, in Chapter 49 of Typ. and Triodi) indicates, but as advice, a practice that is even more difficult, but, of course, spiritually and more promising: “Let him that is able abide, fasting to the heel.” “Fasting” - obviously, in the sense in which “the brotherhood fasts” for the first two days, i.e. in the sense of complete non-eating 118. This advice, which would cause indignation in a modern doctor, may seem neither strange nor cruel to a person well acquainted with church history: five days of complete non-eating (actually 4 1 2) with eating food only on Saturday and Sunday - a fairly common method of ancient fasters. The Christian is invited to experience this technique once a year and through this become acquainted with a whole area of ​​spiritual experiences that are certainly not achievable in any other way (see § 1); in America, unfortunately, experiments and more risky ones are still being carried out not for religious reasons; We don’t dare remind today’s readers of the ancient experiences of forty-day fasts. To exhaust the question completely, the statute besides this practice, which is more severe than the one it prescribes, also indicates an easier one in comparison with the latter. “The holy mountain typik on the first day of slaughter does not at all command food; on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday it is appropriate to eat one liter of bread and water and nothing else, except requiring salt with the bread.” The Athonite Rule, lived through St. Athanasius according to the legends of St. Theodore the Studite, turned out to be more lenient here, just as in general the fasting regime of the Studite Rule was easier than the Jerusalem one (everything was allowed on Wednesdays and Fridays if the twelfth holidays fell on them): fasting was required only on Monday, but on the other days of the first week until Thursday dry eating was allowed, but the strictest was bread and water (the simplicity of the regime without mentioning various “dill with honey” testifies to the great antiquity of the practice). Which of the two practices - Jerusalem or Athonite-Studio - is better, time has clearly shown, and especially the fact that on the Holy Mountain itself the first practice is now entirely accepted. “Nowadays on Athos, after a hearty meal in the evening on the last day of Maslenitsa, at the end of Compline, all the cold water taps in the monastery are closed and left in this position until Wednesday, when, after the presanctified liturgy, the brethren receive a piece of bread and boiling water for tea from a cube” 119. Since the indicated remark of Triodion, borrowed from Chapter 49. The Typikon joins the Monday service in it, then they do not yet predetermine the question of the fasting regime for the remaining days of the first week, excluding, however, Tuesday, which in this regard is identical with Monday. Therefore, leaving without indication the Tuesday meal, which is not supposed to be, the Triodion only in the Wednesday service returns to the rules of fasting and prescribes the following meal for this day: “As part of the meal, we eat dry food, drink juice and honey.” Chapter 32 The Typicon only reveals the concept of dry eating when it says about the same meal: “On Wednesday, after the presanctification of the presanctified, the meal is served, and we eat warm bread and warm vegetable food, and dill and honey are also given.” Vegetables (raw, however) are considered dry food, as we have seen, already by the Apostolic Constitutions. “On the Thursday of that week we do not provide a meal, but we remain fasting [again the word in the sense of complete non-eating, as in the first instruction regarding fasting - on Monday] even until the heel: then we eat as part of the meal,” notes the Triodion and the triode part of the Typikon immediately after the just given indication of the meal on Wednesday, i.e. in the service of Wednesday. In the service of Thursday, as well as Tuesday, eloquent silence about the meal. However, the expressions “we do not provide meals”, “then we eat what is included in the meal” contain a hidden idea that meager food outside the meal, bread and water “and nothing else, unless we require salt with bread” (see above), would not be a desecration of this Thursday, which is why Chapter 32 of it passes in silence. The regulations of fasting pay special attention to Friday of the first week, on the one hand, as the observance of a difficult five-day fast, on the other hand, as the day on which Saturday already begins (in the evening) (and on Saturday there is no fasting at all) and the celebration (still in the afternoon) of the memory of the Holy Great Martyr Theodore Tiron. ϒ ποτύπωσις The Charter prescribes for this Friday “boiled beans with white and black olives (μετα ελαι ϖ ν άσπρων καί μαύρων) and sauerkraut, and kolivo,” and “one beautiful glass” of wine. The charter of P. Alexei and the Pandocrator Monastery goes further: “they pour oil into the salted cabbage” and also a cup of wine. Typikon imp. Irina takes the last step towards permission: “On Friday you should eat some brew (liquid dish), two dishes: one with oil, the other without oil - and you should drink wine in small quantities.” The Evergetian Typikon is already going back: “On this Friday you should eat a certain two boiled dishes without oil, and you should drink the best wine in a big way.” T. Oh, the statutes unanimously allow wine on this day and hesitate in allowing vegetable oil and even boiled food. This hesitation was also reflected in the current regulations regarding Friday. “And we enter into the meal, and eat wine and oil for the holy sake; this was the reception in the Lavra of our venerable father Savva and the monastery of the venerable great Euthymius [the authors of the foundation of the Jerusalem Rule]; but we do not do this now for the honesty of the day, otherwise we eat jam with plums without oil and armea,” that is, the meal is indicated according to the prescription of ϒ ποτύπωσις 'and St. Theodore for every day of the first week, and from αλμαία salting (or. Alexei: salted cabbage) is made from armea. But at the same time it is added: “Those who want to eat dry food, just like on Wednesday.” It is remarkable that the final decree of the present statute does not permit wine on this day, notwithstanding the unanimity of the ancient statutes in this respect. Saturday of the first week, according to the rules, is already a direct holiday (festive confusion after each song of the canon; there is no doxology just for the sake of fasting), dear in memory of the miracle of St. Theodora, and this could not be noted as a special benefit in fasting. The meal of this day is even more regulated by the statutes, but the “permission” they give for this day is common to all Saturdays, as well as to the Sundays of Lent. According to the ϒ ποτύπωσις ’ charter, on this day there were two boiled dishes with butter and two beautiful wines in the morning and evening; almost the same according to the charter of P. Alexei and others; but a number of statutes allow on this day, and next, and on all Saturdays and Sundays. fasting and skull-skinned or octated, i.e. oysters, crayfish, etc. (statute, Emperor Irene, mon. St. Mamant and Elijah, type of St. Sava of Serbia, Pandocrator), even elm (τα νεΰρα - Pandocr.), and one charter and fish (statute of Emperor Irene and Evergetidsky, “if any of the lovers of Christ offers consolation”) 120. So, the current charter returns to the most ancient traditions, bypassing all later hesitations on this score, when it gives such instructions regarding the table on the first, and next, and all ordinary Saturdays and Sundays of Lent about Saturday: “And we eat boiled beans, with white and black olives [the expression is taken from ϒ ποτύπωσις 'a about the meal of the first Friday of Lent] and boiling with spruce; We drink wine according to beauty [not 2, as in ϓ ποτύπ.] for the sake of the saint,” about Sunday: “At the meal we eat stew with oil, and not fish; And if the moon shines, we drink wine, set aside for the glory of God, two cups each” [an advantage over the Sabbath]. The addition “and not fish” is an echo of the fluctuations of the ancient statutes, just like the note (“see”) under Saturday: “It is appropriate to eat fish twice in this Great Lent - on the feast of the Annunciation and Flowering.” In 32 ch. even more decisively: “Pisces are all holy. For the 40th day we dare not eat anything except the Feast of the Annunciation of the Most Holy. Theotokos and Flower Weeks." Another Slavic typicon of 1553 (Moscow Synod. bib.) regarding the last point of another opinion: “On Saturday and week (1st week) all monks and laity eat oil and wine; especially for the laity, if they want, on the first week they should also eat fish; throughout Lent they are ordered to eat fish four times, if they want: on the Orthodox week, and on the week of the veneration of the Holy Cross, and on the week of flowering, and on the Feast of the Annunciation” 121. Here we see the latest hesitation on this issue with a clear inclination towards its current solution. “In other weeks we fast until evening for 5 days and eat dry food, except Saturdays and weeks.” Such a brief and simple instruction, and then only in Chapter 32, is given by the current Typikon regarding food during the entire 2-6 weeks of fasting (dry eating in the above-explained sense). But on this point there was a lot of hesitation in the ancient charter, and the current instruction is the result of them. Almost all ancient statutes tended to make a distinction between the 5 fast days of the week (Saturday and Sunday are not actually fast days), marking some of them with a stricter fast. According to some regulations, fasting is intensified on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, according to others - only on the last two days. Only for these two or three days, most ancient statutes require fasting with the same severity as in the first week; for Tuesday and Thursday permission was given for oil and wine; in the imperial charter Irina for both Wednesday and Friday. But the most ancient statutes - Hypotiposis and St. Alexei - allow boiled food without oil and wine on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays of Lent. The current charter is more to the right, which does not make such a distinction: Wednesday and Friday in Lent are the most joyful of the 5 weekdays due to the fact that they have a liturgy, and even in the first week of Lent, fasting is facilitated on both of these days. So skillfully all its unsuccessful rules were gradually eliminated from the church charter. Several days during the 2-6 weeks of Lent deserved some benefits in fasting due to their special significance. These are 1) Wednesday of the Week of the Cross, which is the very middle, the “halfway point” of the entire fast; 2) Thursday of the 5th week, at Matins of which the great canon is sung, and one Wednesday preceding it, on the evening of which this Matins begins; 3) Friday of the same week, preceding the night of akathist singing; 4) Saturday Lazarev. Wednesday of the Worship of the Cross begins to be celebrated in the rules of fasting later than Thursday of the Great Canon. Hypotiposis does not mention her. Apparently, the charter of Empress Irina speaks about it for the first time, and gives it the greatest permission, such as for Saturdays and Sundays of fasting (three boiled dishes with butter and a large cup of wine). The Euergetic Typikon also gives the same great permission for this environment; in general, it is one of the strictest in Lent. On the contrary, Hypotiposis in one of his editions, Διατύπωσιζ St. Athanasius, the Pandocrator’s Rule equates the entire fourth week in terms of the severity of fasting with the first. The history of this issue explains its position in the current charter. First of all, 32 ch. The Typicon, like the most ancient statutes, does not mention it at all (it talks about Thursday of the Great Canon). Chapter 49 and the Triodion give a fleeting indication of it not in the charter of this day, but in the charter of Thursday of the 5th week, and then only in the form of a quotation from the Svyatogorsk charter (see below). The Thursday of the Great Canon is celebrated in relation to the meal already by Hypotiposis. But here the smallest exemption is given for this day: the same as for the Feast of the Finding of the Head of St. John the Baptist, and less than for the day of 40 martyrs (no oil, only olives and wine). In the charter of the imp. Irene and Evergetid on this Thursday, as well as on Wednesday of the Worship of the Cross, the greatest permission is given, as on Saturdays and Sundays of Lent. The charter of Hieromonk Nil prohibits on this Thursday, as well as on the Wednesday preceding it, dinner, perhaps, contrary to any regulations that allowed it (since there is no dinner at all during fasting, and lunch happens later in the evening). In view of all this, the current charter gives the following instructions about the meal of these days: in Chapter 32. Typikon: “On the Friday of the 1st week, and on Wednesday of the Great Canon, and on Great Thursday, even if there are certain statutes that command that oil be allowed, but it is not done for the honesty of the days”; in chapter 49 and the Triodion on the environment of the great canon: “At the meal we allow oil and wine to partake of labor for the sake of the vigil that desires to be; he who pays attention to be saved, adheres to abstinence; I am unhypocritical in fasting a lot”; about Thursday: “At the meal we eat oil and drink wine, for the sake of the former; Some statutes [Hypotiposis] only allow for wine, but do not allow for oil; in the holy mountains he typically argues: on the holy martyr 40, on the finding of the forerunner’s head, on Wednesday of the veneration of the cross, on the great canon, and on the non-sedal (under the akathist) eat two brews with oil and drink two cups of wine.” Thus, clearly not approving permission for oil on the eve of the great canon (permission, indeed, not given by the most ancient charters), the current charter considers at least permission for wine to be decent for this Thursday; Chapter 32 mentally presupposes the same resolution, disapproving of permission for oil. As we will see below, the same exemption in fasting is given for Maundy Thursday and partly for Maundy Saturday. Of the ancient statutes known to us, there is a remark about Friday on the eve of the Saturday of the Akathist only in the Typikon by Hierom. Nila; Prohibiting dinner on Wednesday and Thursday of the great canon, this charter adds: “On Friday the singers should be consoled for the sake of the Akathist,” i.e. dinner is allowed. The current charter: “At the meal we drink the wine of labor for the sake of the vigil” (49 chapters. Typ. and Triodion). On Lazarus Saturday, Hypotiposis, Orbel Triodion and Typikon by Hierom. The Nile permits fish, the first, equating it in this regard with the week of Orthodoxy, the Worship of the Cross and the feast of the 40 martyrs, the second and third with the feast of the Annunciation. But the charter of P. Alexei only allows for brewing with oil, equating it also with the holidays of the Forerunner, the 40 Martyrs and the Annunciation. The current charter reconciles this disagreement, allowing for caviar on this Saturday: “At the meal we are established by boiling with oil; If the imams have caviar, let each brother be given three ongies 122, and we drink wine” (Chapter 49 Typ. and Triodion; Chapter 32 Typ. does not mention). Strange as it may seem to us now, the ancient regulations on Palm Sunday gave less relief in fasting than on Lazarus Saturday. This could be, of course, only because this day was almost considered to be Holy Week (without it, indeed, this week would not be a week, a week). As is known, according to the current charter, this is one of the two days of the entire Lent in which fish is allowed (which is mentioned in Chapter 32 of the Typikon and in Chapter 49 twice: in the charter of the 1st Saturday of Lent and in the charter of the week of Vay itself: “At the meal there is consolation: we eat fish and drink wine, thanking God”). Meanwhile, Hypotiposis not only does not allow for fish on Palm Sunday (permitting it for 4 days of fasting: 1 and 3 weeks, the Saturday of Lazarus and the 40 Martyrs), but also for oil, but only for olives with a boiled dish and for wine, equating this Sunday meal with the Feast of the Baptist. The charter of P. Alexei does not mention this week in the chapter on fasting, and therefore does not distinguish it from a number of other Sundays of fasting. Of all the ancient statutes known to us, only the Pandocratorsky one mentions it and allows for fish (we are not talking about the statutes allowing for fish on all Saturdays and Sundays of Lent). In addition to these days, days on which any holidays fell were celebrated with a special benefit in fasting. The following holidays may occur during fasting: the Annunciation (very often), the memory of the 1st and 2nd finding of the venerable head of John the Baptist on February 23 (less often) and the memory of the 40 Martyrs of Sebaste on March 9 (always). Most of the ancient statutes do not make any particular difference between these holidays in regard to permission, but some of them vary the degree of this permission depending on whether these holidays fall on Wednesday and Friday or on other days of the week; in the first case, a lower resolution is given. First about the Annunciation. Hypotiposis and Diatiposis allow fish and wine. The charter of P. Alexey is only for oil and wine (apparently). But all further statutes allow for fish, and some of them give this permission for the eve and after-feast of the Annunciation (Orbel Triodion) or for one after-feast, especially if there are leftovers from a fish meal (Evergetid, Sava of Serbia and Kosmosotir), the latter, however, if the after-feast of the Annunciation does not fall on Wednesday or Friday. Charters of the imp. Irene, St. Mamanta and St. Elijah also foresees the coincidence of the Annunciation with Holy Week, in which case he considers only turtle-skinned people. The current charter for the Annunciation allows fish, except when it falls during Holy Week: then oil and wine are allowed; if the holiday falls on Good Friday, then dry food and wine (Mark chapter). For the after-feast (also giving away) of the holiday, according to the current charter, “the permission of wine and oil” (Mineaion March 26); also for the pre-festival. Two other Lenten holidays: February 24 and March 9 (of the polyeleos type) - in the ancient charters they are either equalized with the Annunciation by allowing fasting, or placed below it (fish is not allowed). At the same time, the feast of the 40 martyrs is sometimes placed above the Finding of the Head. The current statute for them allows wine and oil. Some of the ancient statutes place the memory of St. in the same category as these holidays. Vlasiya Feb 11 and (more often) s. Alexey March 17. The charter of the village of Alexei, for obvious reasons, allows for fish on the last holiday. About Holy Week “it is not appropriate to say anything.” All statutes, starting with Hypotiposis, equate it with the first, giving, however, a slight relief of fasting on Maundy Thursday (according to Hypot. and Diatype - boiled vegetables without oil and wine). Wine was allowed with raw fruits (according to the same regulations) on Holy Saturday. But regarding the latter, some editions of Hypotiposis even give permission for cheese and eggs. The issue that caused a conciliar discussion and was resolved at the Trull Cathedral in the sense that the fast of V. Saturday should be resolved no earlier than midnight. The current charter for the first 3 days of Holy Week prescribes dry eating, on Maundy Thursday it allows for oil and wine, and on Holy Saturday only for wine, bread, figs or dates. Isn't this regulation too petty? As elsewhere, it is not the letter that is important here, but the spirit. You need to read all these rules in the Triodion and the Typicon for yourself in order to feel the warm breath of that love for the Church and everything connected with it, which breathed with such force only in the first 8-10 centuries of Christianity. And deep art cannot be denied to this regulation. Probably everyone recognizes the most minute regulation in this code as allowing one caviar on Lazarus Saturday. But one must know the entire exceptional spirit of the service of this Saturday, which in this regard has nothing similar in the entire church year, second only to Great Saturday and Easter in the touchingness and originality of the service; you need to know and feel this in order to understand the whole need to celebrate this day in some special way and in relation to the meal. It is impossible not to pay attention to the great difference in the regime of Lent between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. In the Roman Catholic Church, not only fish is considered a Lenten food, but also dairy products. Currently, milk is allowed among Catholics for all Sundays of Lent, and at one time, apparently, it was allowed on other days of Lent 123. Of course, only meat is prohibited during fasting; but due to blessed guilt, permission for meat can also be given by the priest. In Rouen, Bourges and other cities, huge bell towers were built using the amount collected from permission to eat meat in V. post 124. Such a huge difference in view of fasting shows how different the spirit is permeated by both churches. Acts 17, 28 (literal translation from the accepted Greek text) The official, so to speak, name of this post is “Holy Pentecost”; Only its last week, Holy Week, is called “great” in liturgical books. Chapter VI. Translation by K. D. Popov, ed. "Mediator". Moscow 1906 Epist. De jejun. Coteler. Monum. Eccles. Gr. T. II Russian painting has brilliantly used this subject more than once. Poem "On Lenten Silence." Theophilus at Easter. letter and Cyril of Alexandria say that we fast on Lent “according to the Gospel and Apostolic traditions.” “You are watching” - παρατηρει (to lie in wait, to guard). Acts 20, 16; 1 Cor. 16, 8. Acts 20, 7. Apoc. 1, 10. Message from the Ap. Barnabas 16: “We spend the eighth day in joy, on which Jesus rose from the dead.” Post. apostle book VIII, ch. 33. "Secundum traditionem apostolorum." Letter to Marcella. "Apostolica institutio". Sermo VI de Qudrag. In another place, St. Leo says that the fast of Pentecost “was established by the apostles according to the direction of the Holy Spirit” (sermo IX). Bingham Jos. Origins sive antiquitates ecclesiasticae, vol. IX, Halae 1729, p. 190. It is not clear why Fr. Debolsky sees in this place “The Shepherd” of Hermas a speech about St. Pentecostal (“Days of worship of the Right Catholic Church of the East,” ed. 6, St. Petersburg 1866, part 2, p. 19). Τετράδα ϗ αί παρασ ϗ ευήν, chapter 8.Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, herausg. v. Gebhardt u. Harnack. Leipzig 1886, II Band, S. 25. A circumstance not specified in the reference to this message by Rev. Debolsky (op. cit. p. 11), while in the Russian translation of “The Writings of the Apostolic Men” by St. P. Preobrazhensky (Moscow, 1862) this message was not included as a forgery. His understanding of the newest historians of Lent is shared by Probst (Kirchliche Disciplin in den drei ersten Christlicheu Jahrhunderten, 1873, S. 269–281), and Weistzel (Die christlishe Passafeier, 1818). But the best archaeologists already in the 15th century, and among them the mentioned Bingham, disputed the understanding of Rufinus. V, 23, 1. "κατὰ" in the meaning of "in" when determining time in - Matthew 27, 15. Acts 16, 25. Funk I. X. Kirchgeschichtliche Abhandlungen und Untersuchungen, 1 Band., Paderborn 1897. Mr. A. Petrovsky promptly introduced Funk’s conclusions to the Russian public with his article in “Christ. Readings" 1900 Apr. “The Pre-Easter Fast in the history of its development” (pp. 587–600). Funk. Die apostolischen Constitutionen, 1891, S 50–54 and cit. Op. 250 Migne, Patrologiae cursus completes, s.gr.10, 1278 Funk thinks that Origen was talking about the forty-day fast of the Savior. Kirchgesch. Abhand. u. Untersuch. 254. Sergius Archbishop Complete months of the East, vol. II, ed. 2, Vladimir 1901, p. 44 “Notes”. Möhler. W. Lehrbuch Kirchengeschichte, Tübing. u. Leipz. 1902 I. V., S. 331. Funk considers this monument to be younger than the “Apostolic Constitutions”. Slav. trans.: “displeasure.” De solenn. pasch. cap. 4.5. Migne. S. gr.24, 697 District last to the bishop Ch. 4. Apologist. to Constant. Ch. 15. Will announce. sl. 4. Secret guide. 4. De Noe et arca c.4; De Elia et jejum p.10 The author of the “Historical Discourse on the Fasts of the Orthodox, Eastern, Catholic Church (Moscow 1837)” suspects the testimony of Socrates and Sozomen about the different durations of the pre-Easter fast in their time of inaccuracy and even deliberate distortion of the truth, explaining the latter by a disposition towards innovation: “they could not like the positive statutes of the Church; hence, of course, it happened that it was considered necessary to deliberately and with effort seek out differences in the rites of the Church and at the same time mix half-truth with truth or falsehood” (p. 17). But of the institutions of the Church, the Novatians, the then rigorists of Christianity, could least of all dislike the forty-day fast. Funk, Kirchgesch. Abhandl. u. Untersuch. 264 Apology II, Cf. Tertullian, "On Baptism", ch. 20 Epist.Iad Himerium. Bingham o.c. 199 In handwritten charters of the 16th century. The Solovetsky and Moscow Synodal Library also relies on such a prayer at the full Lenten liturgies - Sts. Chrysostom and Vasily Vel. Dmitrievsky A. Description of liturgical manuscripts, vol. I. Τοπικά. Kiev 1895, p. 133. Epist. Canon. Ad Letojum. Demon. 52.about those who fast on Easter" Missale romanum, dominica I Quadragesimae, feria secuuda Histor. reasoning about fasting, pp. 20, 58. Cassian already thinks so. Collat. XXI, 27, 28. Rule of St. apostles 66 Trullo. personal pr. 55. 18 announcement word, although the word “Quentary” could already be his terminus technicus In the message of St. John of Damascus on fasting has a reference to this testimony. Migne, s. gr. 95, 71–78. “Let this fast (i.e., Lent) be accomplished before the fast of Easter, starting on Monday and ending on Friday; then start St. Easter week (Passion), fasting during it with fear and trembling” (book 5, chapter 1). “The Fourth Day until the 7th day of St. The church usually spends Easter (Holy Week) in fasting; Moreover, all the people spend six days of Easter (Holy Week) in dry eating.” Here is the interpretation of this passage by the book. Leviticus in the Talmud: “Just as by the “work” prohibited on the day of atonement is meant work for which “destruction” is prescribed elsewhere (i.e., in the Sabbath laws), so by “exhaustion” is meant abstinence from such food for which “destruction” is prescribed elsewhere, namely from the “remaining” (from sacrificial meat) and from piggul (vile)” Joma. Siphra achare. Talmud, trans. Pereferkovich, Sib. 1899, II,313. Taannith III, 9(a) (3, 3); lane Pereferkovicha 462 II, 10 (a) (2, 4); Peref. 456. Taannith II, 10 (2, 7). Peref. 456. Ἐκκληοιαοτική ίοτορία I. 1, p. 21; edited by Bidez and Parmentier, London 1898. The passage mentioned above is in V, 18. Word 8 “about fasting and almsgiving.” Typikon, 24 Dec. and 5 Jan. Menaea menstruation, January 5. Apostle right 64: “If anyone from the clergy is found fasting on the Lord’s Day, or on Saturday, except one only (Great Saturday), let him be cast out; if he is a layman, let him be excommunicated.” Wed. Trul. personal pr. 55. Such grounds are indicated by D ü rand in the work Rationale divinorum officiorum, cited by Nei n. A lt, Das Kirchenjahr, Berlin 1860, S. 20. See above quote from Cyril of Jerusalem. Some of these monuments were published by prof. A. A. Dmitrievsky in “Description of liturgical manuscripts, vol. I, Kyiv, 1895.” Of the rest, the chapters on fasting are given almost entirely in his brochure “The Lenten Triodion—a school of piety. (About the post). Kiev 1904". Prof. understands these two passages of the Typikon and Triodion differently. A. A. Dmitrievsky in decree. brochure - "Lenten Triodion - teaching pious", p. 11. A. A. Dmitrievsky, ibid. Dmitrievsky A. A. Lenten Triodion... Pp. 24 and 32. Hand. M. SYNOD. bib. No. 389 (337), l. 496 rev. Dmitrievsky A.A. decree. Op. 32. Ούγγίον, όγκίον – should be a Greek transcription of the Latin unsia-1 12 assa or Roman pound. Łunkiewicza Piara ks. Wyklad obrzędów I religijnych zwyczajów rzymsko-katolickiego kosciola Wydannie 2. Wilno 1854, 1. 32–34. Seredinsky T. priest. About the worship of the Western Church. 2 St. Petersburg 1849, p. 77 You might be interested in: